the Crush
by WingLancir
Summary: The End of the Journey. Revelations, mishaps, and unexpected pairings. Not to be taken seriously. Beware falling rocks, language and YAOI.
1. Episode 1: The Phantom Swishy

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Yet. When I conquer the world, that will undoubtedly change.

PART ONE

During the last few months leading up to the end of the Journey West, it was summarily noted by all involved parties that one Genjyo Sanzou, high priest, emissary of the gods and resident posterboy for impractical black lingerie, had become as of late rather...twitchy.  
  
'Twitchy' was Goku's word for it. Hakkai, being Hakkai and therefore unfailingly, tactfully polite (unless Gojyo was missing and Sanzo demanding coffee), called it 'a slight preoccupation.' An understandable one, unremarkable, perhaps inevitable, and really not something worth bothering the man over.  
  
Gojyo called it fucking hilarious, mostly because he had picked up on it first. A playboy such as himself, experienced connoisseur of all the dynamics and intricacies of Sex and Other Things Vaguely Related, Such As Love, could recognize the look of unrequited infatuation from fifteen miles away.  
  
Sanzo had a _crush._  
  
Not that it was much of a crush, mind you. Sanzo didn't do crushes. There were no mooning calf eyes at the mention of a name, no half desperate interrogations of his closest companions at to whether they thought he had a chance with this person, no private, personal smiles brought on by the random firing of synapses to bring a face into view of the mind's eye. It was not even evidenced by the usual accompanying sexual frustration and suffered abstinence. The monkey had (finally) matured to the point where Sanzo would allow him in his bed, leaving Hakkai and Gojyo to their own devices on rainy nights (and some clear) when formerly the monk would use one or the other or both to keep his mind off the past or just to vent. It was hard work being a Sanzo. Harder work being Genjyo Sanzo on this stupid mission surrounded by stupid people and forced to deal constantly with stupid situations.  
  
Goku was more than happy to provide distraction in place of his two older companions, who, to the surprise of no one, fell easily in step with the routine of screwing each other silly instead of the monk. It had been an inevitable for them, just like the inevitability of Goku growing up and wanting (maybe deserving?) something more grown up in the way of affection from his guardian. He labored under no illusions, however. Even if he loved Sanzo (and he did), Hakkai had explained (and the blond aptly demonstrated) that Sanzo really was an emotional retard, and would never love Goku back the way normal people did, and if he still wanted the intimacy (and he did, very much) then Goku would have to learn to live with the bizarre Sanzo method of returning love, which seemed to involve _very_ satisfying sex and peaceful nights but insults, gunshots, and harisen attacks during the daylight hours. To put it bluntly, no matter what happened behind closed doors, in the morning it would be as if nothing had changed.  
  
Hakkai said he would get used to it, as he and Gojyo had. One could love Sanzo without being in love with him, and that was the best way because while Sanzo could and was capable of loving someone back in his own sadistic style, he appeared entirely incapable of ever actually being in love. With anyone.  
  
That had held true until Sanzo started watching the moon at night.  
  
Now moon-watching was not, despite the sentimentality (read: wussiness) of its title, a particularly odd activity for Sanzo to participate in. All of them had been guilty of it at some time or another in the past. Especially Sanzo and Hakkai. Something to do with tragic pasts and insurmountable guilt and the brooding insomnia brought on by both. However, all four of them had eventually gotten over the angst habit, or at least gotten over it a little bit, due to the judicious insertion of carnal intercourse into their nightly schedules. It was very difficult to lay awake and brood with the solid, comforting warmth of someone else at your back or pressed against your side or draped all over you. Not to mention brooding was usually cancelled out by the prospect of sleep, as exhaustion naturally followed any sort of vigorous exercise. And theirs was very vigorous.  
  
No, the odd thing about Sanzo's habit was that he started to do it _without_ angsting or sulking. He would slip out from under the arm of whoever happened to be sharing his bed (and stealing his covers and drooling on his pillow, the bastards) and stand or sit silently at the window, sometimes lighting a cigarette, sometimes not. Sometimes he would only stay for a moment, sometimes for ten minutes, sometimes an hour, letting the moonlight pour over him in a silver cascade, watching the night sky as if he hoped to decipher some sort of personal message hidden amidst the arrangement of the stars.  
  
There were varying reactions to the habit. Hakkai would often wake as soon as Sanzo moved, preternaturally sensitive even in slumber, and especially so to Sanzo's particular aura. Hakkai never said anything, out of polite courtesy or respect or mockery or maybe even understanding. Hakkai would lay quietly without comment or action until Sanzo came back to his arms of his own accord or left the room. Goku would get up and go to him, try and coax him back to bed with mouth and hands (and it was true what they said about the clever hands of monkeys), or otherwise simply slip his wiry arms around the man's waist and press his cheek against pale, sculptured muscle. Goku craved the contact more than he did sleep or even acknowledgement, so it didn't matter much to him if Sanzo stayed up watching the moon without speaking as long as he didn't push Goku away.  
  
Gojyo inquired snarkily if Sanzo had taken up astronomy. In response the half breed got a bullet so close to his temple it severed a few strands of crimson hair.  
  
Out of all of them, in the end it was Jiipu who got the actual explanation for Sanzo's sudden lunar fascination.  
  
"Only a self-important idiot would have hair the color of moonlight," Sanzo told the little dragon while everyone else was off Doing Other Things. He sat on the windowsill, watching the moonrise. He spoke scathingly.  
  
"Thinking he'll outshine me.... Keh. Asshole. I should have killed him."  
  
"Pii," said Jiipu, blinking bright ruby eyes.  
  
Sanzo's own violet were undreadable. "It was a mistake to leave him behind me on the road," he said softly, then stopped. There was double meaning in that statement he hadn't intended.  
  
"Pii?"  
  
"....I need a cigarette." He got up and left. And that was that.  
  
Nearly a month later, Goku came up with the 'twitchy' thing and stupidly confronted Sanzo with it. It took a damn long time for obvious pieces of evidence to coagulate in monkey brains, Gojyo decided. After all, _he'd_ figured it out several weeks ago.  
  
"You are _too_ twitchy!" Goku asserted, and yelped as the harisen descended on his head with a CRACK!! Gojyo winced reflexively. Goku avoided the next strike, clutching his head and ducking behind Hakkai.  
  
"Say that again and I'll kill you," Sanzo growled dangerously. "I am NOT. TWITCHY."  
  
Goku poked his head out. "Are too and hitting me isn't going to change it!" He'd gotten a lot mouthier somehow with his newfound height and cough maturity, the last currently not on display, or maybe it was just that he appeared to believe that sleeping with the monk ought to equate Sanzo finally listening to his opinions. Sanzo did not share this belief.  
  
Huge golden eyes glared defensively. The boy who was not a boy had defiance written all over his face, along with self-righteous conviction and sheer, stubborn determination. And maybe there was also a little confusion there as well, over what, precisely, his self-righteous conviction actually was. Goku's dislike of secrets (and he knew, just knew Sanzo was hiding something) warred with a greater dislike of believing Sanzo would keep any from him. Any really important ones, anyway.  
  
"Ahaha," Hakkai the mediator said, bringing into play one of his tactical weapons, the Laugh That Was Not a Laugh But Rather a Word, And a Warning To Boot. "Now, Sanzo, Goku hardly means any offense." _I have a headache too,_ Hakkai's flat green eyes said over the polite smile, _and you are not helping by encouraging him to argue and screech._  
  
Sanzo, his mouth tightening ever so slightly, apparently chose to ignore the warning, which was a Bad Thing when it made Hakkai's gaze go all flat and diamond hard like that. Goku was still squalling like a wet cat and oblivious of the danger he was in by being closest in proximity to a Hakkai At The End of His Patience. Gojyo might have felt moved to intercede, were he not a firm believer in self preservation.  
  
"I don't give a shit what he means." Sanzo lunged for the boy, eliciting another loud squawk (and subsequent wince from the headache victim). Goku vacated his extremely dangerous 'haven' behind a quietly smoldering Hakkai and dashed for the open door. Sanzo snagged the trailing edge of a half cape and yanked; Goku was nearly jerked backwards off his feet until Sanzo's other hand caught up with his shoulder. Momentum carried them both out into the hallway to impact against the wall. Further sounds of scuffling thus ensued. A door slammed shut. Hakkai and Gojyo pretended not to notice the location of said door coinciding exactly with the location of the door to Sanzo and Goku's bedroom. Perhaps the monk had gotten the hint after all. There really was only one absolutely effective way of shutting Goku up.  
  
Hakkai let out the breath he'd been holding and closed his eyes against the fluorescent glare of the overhead light.  
  
"Kid's got a point," Gojyo observed after a moment.  
  
One emerald green eye cracked open to give him a Look.  
  
Gojyo grinned. "Twitchy."  
  
Hakkai couldn't help it. He started chuckling. It was a soft, unstrained sound that, to Gojyo's admittedly biased ear, put the most beautiful of music to shame.  
  
"Ah, but life is full of irony." The redhead got up and strolled around to the back of his best friend's chair.  
  
"Oh?" Hakkai had to bite back an utterly undignified moan of pleasure as strong, knowing hands dug into the knots in his shoulders.  
  
"Well, I guess it makes as much sense as the monkey growing a brain stem. "  
  
"....I assume you're talking about Sanzo."  
  
As was his habit, Gojyo leaned down to breathe his words in Hakkai's ear, enjoying the shiver it caused. "Who would have thought, huh?"  
  
Hakkai smiled despite his headache. "Children grow up. Some of them just take a little longer than others to figure everything out. And, they say the heart is always the last thing to mature." He stopped talking with a sudden indrawn breath. Gojyo's talented hands had moved from his painfully knotted shoulders (although he could hardly feel that anymore) and were concentrated now on something that suddenly ached far worse.  
  
"Mm. Think so?" Gojyo's voice was lazy and purring and not at all trustworthy behind him.  
  
Hakkai twisted around in the chair to face the other man, only the faintest trace of blush on his high cheekbones. "Gojyo..."  
  
"Shut up. I've got a better headache remedy than silence and that nasty bitter tea you brew for hangovers." And he did.  
  
Another door slammed shut. 

_END Part One_

OUTTAKES  
  
(Scene: SANZO confessing or whatever to JIIPU)  
  
SANZO: It was a mistake to leave him behind me on the road.  
  
JIIPU: Pii?  
  
SANZO: ....I seriously need to get laid.  
  
(Scene: HAKKAI and GOJYO listen to SANZO and GOKU'S scuffle in the hallway)  
  
SANZO: (muffled cursing)  
  
GOKU: (equally muffled) It's a push door, not pull, you moron.  
  
Take Two: HAKKAI and GOJYO listen to SANZO and GOKU'S scuffle in the hallway)  
  
GOJYO: (catcall) Whoo, you go boy! Spank that monkey! ....heeeey, does that mean when the kid jacks off it's a monkey spanking a monkey...?  
  
HAKKAI: (firmly) Gojyo, can you please try and focus?  
  
GOJYO: Right right. Your monkey is the issue at hand. My bad.  
  
(Take Three: HAKKAI and GOJYO listen to SANZO and GOKU'S scuffle in the hallway)  
  
(door slam)  
  
GOJYO: (howl) NOOKIE! (tackles HAKKAI onto the bed and molests him)  
  
SANZO: (walks in suddenly) O.O ...THE FUCK?!  
  
GOJYO: o.o That was quick. Thought you'd be busy for at least fifteen minutes with the monkey.  
  
SANZO: . I locked him in his room to punish him, you filthy minded retard.  
  
GOJYO: Oh.  
  
(moment of silence)  
  
HAKKAI: ....it's impolite to stare, Sanzo-san.  
  
GOJYO: Yeah, either go away or join in.  
  
SANZO: (seethe) ..... (joins in)


	2. Episode 2: Attack of the Spaceballs

PART TWO

A day or two after the 'twitchy' incident, Sanzo finally resolved a purely internal war he'd been waging with himself for a long while. It was time, he decided, to put an end to this ridiculous farce of a mission.  
  
"Get packed," he told the others at dawn, ignoring their sleep muzzed looks of blank incomprehension. Sanzo's sense of urgency had faded considerably after the first three years on the road. Since that time, he'd never once insisted on unholy departure times, finding that giving the monkey time to eat breakfast (and himself a chance to properly recover from whatever he'd been doing the night before with lots and lots of strong coffee) translated into a day spent in the Jeep with no headache/hangover/suspicious feelings of soreness in fascinating places as well as less whining from Goku.  
  
"But Sanzo...." Hakkai began, ready to point all of this out, until the monk silenced him with a glare.  
  
"We're finishing this stupid Journey so we can all go home," Sanzo announced flatly. "Anyone not out front and ready to go in ten minutes is getting left behind." Ultimatum delivered, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. Silence reigned in his wake.  
  
Goku abruptly squalled and dashed for the kitchen, realizing 'ten minutes' meant 'no breakfast' unless he packed something to take along. Hakkai and Gojyo exchanged a Look.  
  
"Think he's missing someone?" the halfbreed sniggered.  
  
Hakkai very politely refrained from doing the same. "Maa, Gojyo." He began gathering up strewn clothing left from the night before. "If you were stuck going West knowing I was waiting in a village behind you, what would you do?"  
  
"I'd say fuck the mission, babe." Gojyo left off searching for his other boot to toss a wink at the green eyed youkai. "Togenkyou could go to hell in a handbasket for all I care, as long as I have you."  
  
Hakkai tried and failed to not look pleased. Gojyo was a master of empty, meaningless flattery, but nothing the redhead did when it came to one Cho Hakkai, mass murderer, polar opposite and best beloved, could ever be construed as meaningless.  
  
"Then Togenkyou is very lucky that Sanzo does not think the way you do," was all the healer said in response, however.  
  
Gojyo snorted. Seconds later he made an entirely different noise when long, slender fingers that a girl named Kanan had once called beautiful reached from behind to undo his belt.  
  
"Sanzo did say ten minutes," Hakkai murmured into the nape of Gojyo's neck, his blandly innocent tone in complete contrast with what his hands were doing to the halfbreed in front. Thus occupied he missed the other's sudden huge, stupid grin. Apparently pretty words were appreciated by the quiet scholar types as well as praise mongering women.  
  
They made it outside in eleven minutes, but since Jiipu wouldn't go anywhere without his master, Sanzo couldn't make good on his threat to leave them behind. The monk settled for glaring at both of them, receiving a wide, wide smirk from Gojyo and a sunny smile from Hakkai.  
  
Deciding afterglow hurt his eyes, Sanzo kept his sour gaze on the passing landscape as they drove and chainsmoked until the Kougaiji-tachi showed up, right on schedule, to challenge them an hour past midday.  
  
"Genjyo Sanzo!" Kougaiji shouted in his best Noble Challenger voice, trying valiantly to ignore the fact that Lirin was sitting on the monk's shoulders. "We've come for the sutra. Surrender it and you'll keep your life."  
  
Ah, the familiarity of everyday ritual.  
  
"He says 'I refuse!'" Goku yelled back, eager to get on with the fighting and interrupting the blond who had indeed been about to say just that, with a few expletives tacked on for good measure.  
  
Sanzo glared and dislodged Lirin, booting her back to her proper side of the battle with a good hard kick. "Don't put words in my mouth, monkey."  
  
Goku spared him a sidelong look, Nyoi-bo held at ready. "But that's what you always say."  
  
"Not today." Sanzo shifted his acid glance back to Kougaiji. "You. I'm tired of you. Only an idiot would get brainwashed or possessed as many times as you do and require rescuing by your enemies. It's pathetic." He raised the Smith&Wesson and shot the youkai prince in the throat.  
  
Everyone gaped, except for Kougaiji, who managed to look both shocked and affronted before falling down in a pool of his own blood.  
  
"Che." Sanzo then swung around and shot Gojyo.  
  
"Now listen up," the monk snapped at a horrified Dokugakuji and Yaone. "In return for my healer saving these two idiots before they bleed to death, both of you are going to tell me what I want to know about the motherfucker issuing your orders. _Then,_ you are going to give me that long distance dragon I know you assholes flew in here on, and I'm going to Houtou Castle to settle things."  
  
In some part of Hakkai's mind that wasn't in a whitehot rage over Gojyo being shot and himself being traded around in a negotiation like a side of beef, he had to admit there was a certain merit in the simplistic direct approach.  
  
"Um," said Goku intelligently, trying and failing to get over what looked like an authentic case of shock trauma, "um, Sanzo, are you going by yourself? You shot Gojyo."  
  
"And Hakkai will certainly need to stay behind and heal the wounded," Hakkai added in his best Really Polite Voice Concealing Ugly, Murderous Fury.  
  
Sanzo shrugged. "That all depends on whether they agree to give me what I want."  
  
Yaone appeared sick and shaken, but since Doku seemed way too busy following the monkey into shock and Lirin was still staring speechlessly at her brother, the alchemist supplied the answer for all three of them. "..of...of course, Genjyo Sanzo."  
  
Sanzo had the audacity to look slightly pleased with himself. Hakkai made a mental note to take it out of his hide later. Lovestruck (and therefore, no longer completely rational) or not, there some things that couldn't be excused and the priest's current behavior was one of them.  
  
He fervently hoped Sanzo would come back alive from Gyumaoh's castle, if only so Hakkai could wring his selfish neck.  
  
Here Within Follows The Account of the Third Fall of Houtou Castle  
  
or,  
  
What _Really_ Happens at the End of the Journey West  
  
As all main characters are required to do when facing the last Fortress of Doom, Sanzo formed a party of the most useful of his currently available allies, excepting Hakkai, Kougaii, and Gojyo for obvious reasons. So he stood on a ridge before the gloomy, really cliché looking castle with Goku flanking him on one side and Dokugakuji on the other. Goku was staring at the castle with unconcealed anticipation. The former Sha Jien was staring at Sanzo with unconcealed dislike.  
  
"Get over it," Sanzo told him bluntly. "I'm doing your prince a favor. I haven't seen him doing anything to get rid of the crackbitch you said was in charge, that Gyokumen Kyushu."  
  
And Jien could hardly argue with that.  
  
They entered the castle. There was screaming. There was blood. There was death.  
  
Sanzo leaned against a red spattered stone wall and smoked a cigarette unconcernedly. Long withheld frustration had turned one of his party members into an unstoppable force of violence and destruction, and the other had always been one even with his limiter intact. "This is getting repetitive," he remarked aloud to no one.  
  
Then he noticed the door. He pushed himself off the wall and went to investigate.  
  
Soft white light greeted him inside. Streamers of ofuda hung from every wall. A massive white stone pillar stretching from ceiling to floor, in which a female youkai of glaringly familiar features was imprisoned.  
  
"Rasetsunyo," Sanzo said quietly, offering the name to the silence. It seemed to echo back to him in a prince's misery strained voice.  
  
_Why not?_ he thought to himself, and flicked away his cigarette.  
  
Goku and Jien came looking for him sometime later, having tired of chasing down cowardly guards and only just now noticing that Sanzo was not trailing along in their bloody wake. Jien might have felt worse about killing former comrades if they did not attack him first, screaming "Die, traitor!" and otherwise spewing garbage that Gyokumen had to have put in their heads. Only a moron would take anything that bitch said at face value. Anyone who believed her deserved the punishment for general stupidity.  
  
Shouts and sounds of combat indicated the location of their target. They charged around a corner, expecting to find Sanzo cornered and out of bullets, or worse, out of cigarettes. What met their astonished eyes instead was the sight of a tall, sharply beautiful woman with an absolutely glorious cascade of crimson hair .....roasting alive what had to be three or four entire squads of soldiers. Sanzo stood off to one side, slightly behind her and looking displeased as the smell of burnt flesh wafted in his direction.  
  
"She keeps dogs to guard her palace, rather than warriors," the Empress Rasetsunyo observed calmly after the bodies had been reduced to ash, shaking back the voluminous sleeves of her shockingly white kimono.  
  
Goku and Jien gaped for the second time that day.  
  
Sanzo lit another cigarette. "Usurpers are often gifted with a lack of judgement," he agreed, sounding bored. He took a long drag and exhaled slowly. After a moment he added, "Unforgiveable."  
  
"Truly." Rastetsunyo's smile, while as flawless and beautiful as she, was vengeful and just a bit scary.  
  
"Lady," Jien breathed, hope dawning like a sunrise across his blood streaked face. Her terrible, lovely gaze fell on him as he moved to kneel before her. "Your servant. I am a bonded swordsman to your son, Empress."  
  
"Dokugakuji." And her rich jewel voice turned the name he had taken into something honorable, something worth aspiring to, instead of the mask it was for the sinner Sha Jien. "I've been told of your loyalty to my Kougaiji. For staying by his side in this snake infested pit, I thank you, as a mother and as Empress."  
  
Two and two finally collided together in Goku's head. "You're Kougaiji's _mom?!_" he yelped. Sanzo and Jien both winced.  
  
Golden eyes as wide as saucers stared at her earnestly. "But you're so pretty. Moms aren't supposed to be so pretty, are they?" Utterly oblivious to his own lack of tact. In his own mind it made sense, though, because really, none of the moms he'd encountered (and the subject was fairly abstract for Goku anyway, never having had a mother) had been pretty, except maybe for that Yanming chick. Moms were older, respectable ladies who cooked good food and wore aprons and worked at inns or shops next to their respectable husbands.  
  
Sanzo and Jien both reached grimly for their weapons. Insulting powerful royalty (especially a member of that they hoped to enlist as an ally) was one of those Things Deserving Punishment That Dumb Monkey Ignorance Could Not Excuse.  
  
Except Rasetsunyo beat them to the punch, and smiled in pure amusement, the expression as dazzling as her smile of bloodlust was frightening. Jien took another turn at gaping while Sanzo just looked briefly annoyed at the loss of opportunity to pound some sense of etiquette into his ward's thick skull.  
  
One deceptively delicate, pale hand lifted to sift affectionately through scruffy chocolate brown hair.  
  
"Child," she told the _itan_ monkey god cum destroyer of the world, "never regret the honesty of your words. Truth is a powerful, powerful gift, and you wield it well."  
  
Goku flushed bright red.  
  
Jien finally stopped gaping (damn his jaw hurt). This was a possibility he'd never even thought of, one that might sway the outcome of the conflict firmly, irreversibly in their favor. He directed a look approaching awe at Sanzo. "Did you ....did you do this?" Meaning, of course, breaking the Lady's seal.  
  
"Do you see anyone else here?" the monk retorted. He did look a tad bit smug, however.  
  
Rasetsunyo favored the ill tempered blond with another of her dazzle smiles. "Sanzo Houshi-sama has been kind enough to explain some of the details of what's happened since I've been asleep. When the traitor bitch is dead, we will owe him a great deal."  
  
The monk flicked ash from the end of his cigarette. "All you owe me is the Seiten Sutra and a halt in the experiments to revive your husband."  
  
"As good as yours." Deep amethyst eyes, the same shade as Kougaiji's, sparked briefly with anger. Her voice turned brittle, the way Hakkai's did sometimes when he was about to go postal. "My ....._dear_ husband will remain asleep until Heaven sees fit to release him. After all, it was the gods who sealed him, and who am I to dispute divine decree?"  
  
Sanzo raised a brow.  
  
The Empress of Houtou Castle let a wisp of flame dance between her fingertips. "He tried to kill my son, you know," she said conversationally, ignoring Jien's intake of breath. "Swore a youkai who refused to eat human flesh was no son of his blood, and he would do better with another womb to bring forth his heir. And the traitor whore who sits up there on my throne ran to oblige as soon as I was out of the way." She extended an arm languidly, and to all of their discomfort, the thick stone wall actually burst into flame.  
  
"Shall we go say hello?"

_END Part Two_

OUTTAKES  
  
(Scene: SANZO shoots GOJYO)  
  
GOJYO: It's just a flesh wound! (falls over)  
  
(Scene: SANZO shoots KOUGAIJI)  
  
KOUGAIJI: (tries to duck out of the way and ends up getting the bullet between his eyes)  
  
SANZO: Dammit. Hakkai, can you fix that?  
  
HAKKAI: Um, no?  
  
SANZO: (sigh) Another brilliant plan wasted on idiots.  
  
(Take Two: SANZO shoots KOUGAIJI  
  
KOUGAIJI: (dodges) What the hell was that for?!  
  
SANZO: (still shooting) Quit flinching away and take it like a man!  
  
(Scene: SANZO, JIEN and GOKU use one of KOUGAIJI'S flying dragons to reach Houtou Castle)  
  
GOKU: ..whaddya mean there's no in-flight movie?!  
  
(Take Two: SANZO, JIEN and GOKU use one of KOUGAIJI'S flying dragons to reach Houtou Castle)  
  
DRAGON: (gets a few wingbeats up into the air)  
  
(A cell phone rings)  
  
SANZO:(fishes one out of his robes and answers) ..hello?  
  
JIEN: No, don't...!  
  
DRAGON: (CRASH)  
  
SANZO, JIEN & GOKU: x.x  
  
JIEN: (weakly) No cell phones during takeoff.  
  
SANZO: (bleeding) ....  
  
(Scene: SANZO, JIEN, and GOKU stand before the gates of Houtou Castle)  
  
GUARD: Who goes there?  
  
JIEN: Me. Open the fucking door.  
  
GUARD: Ah, Dokugakuji! (pauses, suddenly suspicious) Those guys with you aren't English knights, are they?  
  
JIEN: ...uh, no.  
  
GUARD: Oh, good. We had some wackos up here earlier ranting about coconuts and sparrows and a Holy Grail. We sicced the guard dogs on them.  
  
SANZO: (twitch) (aside, to JIEN) Guard dogs? I refuse to get chased around by stinking animals once we're inside...  
  
JIEN: He means the Ethnically Improbable Trio of French Youkai: Pierre, Jacques, and Jean-Paul. We let them handle intruders.  
  
PIERRE: (appears at edge of battlements) Your mother was a greyhound, and your father smelled of alderberries!  
  
SANZO: ...all of you youkai are goddamn freaks, you know that?  
  
(Scene: the chamber where RASETSUNYO is sealed. SANZO walks in)  
  
SANZO: (frees her)  
  
RASETSUNYO: A little short for a Stormtrooper, aren't you?  
  
SANZO: ..........  
  
(Scene: the chamber where RASETSUNYO is sealed. SANZO walks in)  
  
SANZO: (stares up at the pillar and reaches out slowly to touch it, perhaps to see if she's real)  
  
(There's a flash of light and RASETSUNYO crumbles suddenly into pieces like the youkai who turned to stone statues in that one episode  
  
SANZO: .......shit. (looks around to make sure there were no witnesses. And then runs like hell.)  
  
(Take Two: the chamber where RASETSUNYO is sealed. SANZO walks in)  
  
SANZO: (stares up at the pillar and slowly reaches out...to ignite a match by scraping it across her face. He then lights his cigarette and strolls back out) 


	3. Episode 3: Revenge of the Llamas

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

  
PART THREE  


  


(Congratulations! RASETSUNYO has joined your party. GOKU Level Up! JIEN Level Up! SANZO HP decreased due to smoking. Additions to Party Skills: Pyrokinesis, Summon Hell Fiend. Gained: EXP, AP. No items.)  
  
And so on and so forth.  
  
It soon became much easier to clear the castle (dungeon) levels. Youkai guards willing to tackle what looked like two humans and a traitor were far more leery of, and in some cases willing to surrender peaceably or at the very least get confused and distracted for a few seconds at the appearance of a vengeful she-demon silhouetted in flames, demanding as their true Empress to let. them. pass.  
  
Those who didn't move died fairly horrible deaths and became sparkling examples to their comrades. As the Sanzo party (har) moved onwards, they encountered less and less truly serious resistance.  
  
It got even easier to move on when they ran into a group of Kougaiji's men who recognized both Jien and Rasetsunyo. After the initial bouts of fainting and heart attacks, Sanzo and Goku were treated to the unfamiliar honor of having an armed guard, albeit a small one, both clearing the way before them and preventing any chance of an attack from the rear.  
  
"This is _boring_," Goku muttered as he paced at Sanzo's side.  
  
"You could always take point," Sanzo told him, in no mood for whining. "Or do you not trust Gojyo's brother and Kougaiji's mother to handle things back here?" He made no mention of himself because the way things were going, he wasn't going to have to fight at all. At least just yet. And really, that was peachy keen and dandy. Sanzo liked making other people do his dirty work unless he really, really wanted the kill for himself.  
  
Whir went the wheels in the monkey's brain. Gleam went the bright, bright eyes. _Can I Sanzo?_ those eyes asked soundlessly. _Will you be safe if I go ahead, can I can I?_  
  
"Stupid monkey. You don't need my permission." _I'll be fine._  
  
"Sankyuu!!" Goku crowed as though Sanzo had just given him a gift, and went charging off, happiest as always when able to prove his own power physically. Goku was not terribly smart, like Hakkai or Sanzo, nor was he clever with words, cards, or women, like Gojyo. He was not even graceful in that strange, intangible way of Kougaiji's, which had he known the words, he would have called nobility, or aristocratic. What he was, what he was good at, was strength. Sheer indestructibility, and his own confidence of it.  
  
Because Sanzo wanted things he would not have to protect.  
  
Rasetsunyo was eyeing the monk as Goku's pounding footfalls drew away. "Yours?" she asked, fondness tracing her tone and another, older child behind her eyes.  
  
Sanzo thought about denying it. But he'd been denying a lot of things recently. Maybe this was the right time, here and now in the middle of enemy territory, so close to the completion of his _his life's purpose? His personal Journey, is that what this was?_ assigned mission, to finally admit some truth to himself. Maybe.  
  
"Yes," he found himself answering her. "That's right." He was mildly surprised that speaking his own mind honestly didn't hurt somehow, given how out of practice he was.  
  
Who knows what more might have been said, had Goku not come careening back at that particular instant and, throwing himself at a monk shocked defenseless, sealed their lips together.  
  
Rasetsunyo's face went comically blank, staring. Jien turned several fascinating colors and averted his eyes, all the while mentally tallying up the number of bets he'd just won. He _knew_ there was something swishy about the monk.  
  
Sanzo was twitching dangerously when Goku let him up for air. He fairly radiated volcanic fury. The safety clicked off on the gun that he appeared to have drawn from nowhere.  
  
"You _will_ call me if you need me," Goku surprised him by demanding fiercely and with utter seriousness. This was evidently one of those weird, fluke episodes of maturity that transformed him from child to adult in the span of a second. Sanzo said nothing, but neither did the gun his clenched fist go off, as focused, sober golden eyes searched his own. No longer the eyes of a child, the blond thought dimly.  
  
"Alright then." Whatever Goku had seen appeared to satisfy him, and he let go as abruptly as he'd attached. Before Sanzo could even find the breath to swear or make a death threat the monkey was gone, off and running and soon lost in the violence of the melees going on at the far end of the hall.  
  
Meanwhile Sanzo was _not_ blushing. He wasn't.  
  
"Yours?" Rasetsunyo repeated into the terrible silence, her tone deceptively neutral. Who knew what was going on behind her marble etched expression of polite yet aloof imperial calm.  
  
Sanzo was reminded exceedingly of Hakkai and glared accordingly. He snapped, "I never said he was my son."  
  
Something that sounded suspiciously like a snigger erupted from the corner where Jien was, ostensibly, facing away from the scene to hide his own embarrassment.  
  
Sanzo glared at him too. Really, both siblings were equally annoying. In fact, this was almost as bad as having the original idiots here with him. (Somewhere far away, an unconscious but very alive Gojyo and an extremely exhausted Hakkai simultaneously sneezed.)  
  
Rasetsunyo's polite mask cracked, and the corner of her mouth twitched up. She was obviously trying her damndest not to laugh out loud.  
  
Sanzo decided to go kill something and stalked off in the direction Goku had taken, muttering viciously under his breath all the while. Too bad they weren't his real companions. Them at least he could shoot at when they mocked him.  
  
Following an encounter with a strangely familiar lab coated human in glasses (whose intelligent, malicious black eyes had hungrily devoured the sight of Sanzo in a way that made the priest, used to stares of all sorts from murderous to awed to lustful, very nervous, a peculiar feeling of unsettling _wrongness_ that he hadn't felt since Kami-sama) that ended with Jien roaring something incomprehensible and running the man through, they were ready to proceed at last to the castle's (dungeon's) lowest (final) level (stage).  
  
Sanzo lingered over the body, not quite sure what he was looking for in a dead man's middle aged, stubble patterned face. Goku appeared at his side as though he'd been summoned from thin air.  
  
"Sanzo?" he questioned, picking up on his guardian's unease and tensing unconsciously in response, ready for a fight. Their little band of rebel soldiers had already been dismissed to go and guard the exits, courtesy of Rasetsunyo's orders. Others had been dispatched to various parts of the castle to seal off, if they could, any of the secret tunnels that the quarry might use as an escape route. The four remaining waited now only for Sanzo's readiness.  
  
"....nothing. It's nothing. Let's go."  
  
They went. Nii Jenyi's blankly staring eyes, thus far trained up at the ceiling, slid sideways to watch them go.  
  
Gyokumen Kyushu met them at the bottom of the lift stop with the detonating of planted explosives.  
  
.....  
  
Sanzo woke in his least favorite way: aching, chained, and weaponless, deprived of gun, sutra and most of his outer robe. A glance aside revealed his companions nearby in similar states of bondage, coming around as well, although Goku had blood pouring from his temple and seemed content to stay out like a light.  
  
A figure stepped in front of him. Sanzo glared up at the bitch responsible for this entire mess.  
  
"Ah, this one's awake." She was lovely like poison, as he'd half expected; Rasetsunyo's opposite. Blue/green to flaming scarlet, silk draped curves to a harder, sleeker physique, vanity to honor. A courtesan, a scheming flower with jewel hard eyes and no softness to be found except on the outside.  
  
It was a wonder that Rasetsunyo had been sealed rather than poisoned or knifed in the dark. Gyokumen Kyushu was obviously not one to challenge her enemies directly, as evidenced by the two hundred or so armed guards arrayed in ranks behind her, trying their best to look impressive and intimidating. Sanzo had wondered where all the rest of the castle's reinforcements had gotten off to.  
  
The monk spared an uncharacteristic pitying thought for the Kougaiji-tachi who dealt with this on a daily basis. Then he abruptly retracted that sympathy in light of the knowledge that _they,_ excepting Dokugakuji, were many miles away and not here now enjoying captivity.  
  
Gyokumen had been speaking while he was observing and pitying/envying others not present. Sanzo tuned back in to catch the tail end of her speech, which she'd probably spent three years preparing since hearing of his coming (and she had).  
  
"Blah blah blah great honor to be guests tonight, blah blah opportunity to view your failure, blah blah won't kill you now a better fate awaits momentarily, blah blah blah."  
  
_Great,_ Sanzo surmised wearily. _She's going to make us watch and listen to her running narrative as she brings Gyumaoh back to life. _Which would explain all the buzzing, humming and blinking going on across the surface of the vast, ominous machines surrounding a hulking shadow that had to be the sealed demon king.  
  
His next thought was _Fuck that._  
  
"I must say I wasn't expecting the change in entourage...to think you would leave your healer behind and bring a traitor along with the boy and the kappa..."  
  
Sanzo choked at that and wondered how anyone so stupid as to mistake one red head for another of completely opposite gender could have possibly made so much trouble for him over three years. Granted, they were all covered in dust and burns from the explosion, but....  
  
Rasetsunyo finished her Summoning chant, begun as soon as she'd crawled back to awareness, and the monk leaned back blissfully against cold stone to watch the fireworks.  
  
Maybe fifty or so guards survived the Summon fiend's onslaught, to Goku's pleasure as once awake and free, he tore through their remaining number like a tornado through a grass field. Gyokumen also survived, to Sanzo's distaste and Rasetsunyo's pleasure. The Empress was arguing with Jien over who got to kill the bitch while Sanzo stood by and rubbed at his welt covered wrists. He made a mental note to never again have shackles melted off.  
  
"Damn you! Damn all of you to the lowest pits of hell!!" Gyokumen shrieked from her perch high above in the machinery scaffolding. She'd climbed up there to escape and was now stuck like a treed cat. Sanzo moodily wished he felt energetic enough to search for his gun so he could shoot her. At this rate, he was going to have to resort to throwing rocks to shut the woman up.  
  
"You haven't beaten me yet!"  
  
Rasetsunyo and Jien stopped arguing long enough to eye Gyumaoh's concubine. "It sort of looks like it from down here?" Jien finally called up, cupping his hands around his mouth to make himself heard.  
  
Gyokumen screeched at him.  
  
Sanzo scowled as the shrill sound pierced his eardrums unmercifully and elicited the beginnings of a headache. "Can we get on with this?" he demanded finally of his squabbling cohorts. At least Gojyo and Hakkai weren't prone to arguing with each other. Only with him.  
  
"I laid claim to her corpse _years_ before you were even born, bondsman," Rasetsunyo hissed. "Give. her. to. me."  
  
Jien growled right back. "It's _my_ duty to kill her in place of Kougaiji-sama. Surely he deserves the most right to revenge."  
  
They appeared not to have heard him. Sanzo really, really wanted his gun.  
  
A particularly loud thrumming noise above them interrupted both squabble and wishful thinking, however. Gyokumen had by some miracle made her way to what might have been a console, and was pressing buttons fast and furious like some demented organ player interested in getting as much discordant sound as possible. Lights flashed and metal groaned. Jets of steam hissed into the air.  
  
"Oh. Fuck," was Jien's response. The monk nobly resisted the urge to throttle him.  
  
Gyokumen's maniacal laughter rang out over the heavy thrum of machinery. "You will see now!" she called, madness contorting her once beautiful face into a twisted mask. "Suffer! Everyone will suffer!"  
  
Goku came running up, panting and gore spattered but otherwise looking disgustingly genki. "Sanzo! Sanzo! What is it? What's she doing?"  
  
"Hell if I know," Sanzo snapped. He didn't add the obvious _Something Not Good._  
  
"Witness the rebirth of a GOD!!" Gyokumen punched in a final sequence, and light exploded from the center of the contraption.  
  
The Minus Wave that hit in the next second was so strong it was visible.  
  
"AghFUCK!!" Jien howled, clutching at his temples and going down on both knees. Rasetsunyo and Goku joined him in agony shortly, and so did Sanzo as a wash of alien rage/pain/fire/fury/hunger/BLOODLUST invaded his mind.  
  
The thing that shook him most, however, was the sight of something very, very familiar up there smack dab in the center of a bunch of wires directly above Gyokumen. A silver pendant in intricate pattern, glowing like a new sun.  
  
"Behold! He RISES!" Gyokumen's voice carried up into a decibel shattering scream, and behind her the hulking mountain of shadow began to move.  
  
It was another's name on his lips however, as Sanzo looked up, and up, at the resurrected Gyumaoh, lord of western Tenjiku and hailed god of destruction.  
  
"...Ha..zel..."  
  


_END Part Three  
_

* * *

_  
_

OUTTAKES  
  
(Scene: SANZO, JIEN, GOKU, and a newly freed RASETSUNYO clear the castle levels)  
  
GOKU: (appears to be defeating the guards by jumping on their heads)  
  
SANZO: What the hell are you doing?  
  
GOKU: This is how you get mushrooms!  
  
(Scene: GOKU comes running back to interrupt SANZO'S conversation with RASETSUNYO)  
  
GOKU: (jumps SANZO and molests) You _will_ call me if you need me, right?  
  
SANZO: (suspiciously drunk) Hellyeah.  
  
GOKU: Kay. (runs off)  
  
RASETSUNYO & JIEN: EWomfgSHOTA  
  
SANZO: (sparkle)  
  
(Scene: GOKU runs off after frenching SANZO)  
  
RASETSUNYO & JIEN: ...............  
  
SANZO: What? He's not my son.  
  
JIEN: Yeah whatever, Laguna. 


	4. Episode 4: A New Hope And Rocks!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. 'Ware ze Spoilers for Gunlock.

...wait, this is an AU. What spoilers? D I don't even known what happened officially.

* * *

PART FOUR

_In Which Sanzo Learns That the Greatest Weapons Are Those Everyone Later Laughs At You For Using  
  
_Pain. Pain consumed his universe, pain of body and pain of mind. Dimly Jien could hear his own voice howling in purest agony, and other voices rising up to meet his, but that was far far away and the red that covered his eyes was blinding, was suffocating, was burning in his throat and lungs and he was lost to its lurid glow. It felt good to give in, to surrender after so long fighting the Wave induced insanity that nibbled always at the edges of his mind. This place did that to people.  
  
He let his eyes slide shut and drifted on a sea of red.  
  
When the torrential pulse of the Minus Wave finally subsided, Sanzo, being a human (and an exceedingly strong willed one) was the only one who got back up. Thus it was solely his dubious pleasure to view the gargantuan form of Gyumaoh slowly rising from the carved throne he had occupied for five hundred years, shaking off wires and parts of scaffolding like a snake shedding its skin. Red hellfire gleamed from the pits of shadowed, sunken eye sockets. The mouth gapped open, yellowed fangs protruding, and the first inhalation of air inflated ancient lungs and carried oxygen to a slab of gray matter and cerebellum easily the size of the Jeep. There was a sword, too, leaning against the wall, one with a blade so large it could have served as a double lane bridge across a river. The demon king's hand groped in the darkness and settled on its familiar hilt, dragged the weapon slowly towards him with a horrible shriek of steel on stone.  
  
It had taken the strength of a toushin taishi to defeat this monster before. Sanzo stood alone before him, a human armed only with a really bad temper and an adamantine refusal to back down when he'd come this far. He was pissed, too, well and truly furious, and had been since he'd first seen the star pendant set prominently in Gyokumen's control panel.  
  
_hair the color of moonlight_  
  
Sanzo leveled his baleful glare at the towering youkai and threw down his challenge. "Omae o korosu." _I'm going to kill you._  
  
Gyumaoh's ancient lips split in a wide, bloodsucking grin.  
  
In the Heavens, Kanzeon screeched at Jiroushin to hurry up and get the damned popcorn before the show started.  
  
"Devour them, my love. Devour them, devour the world. Send them all to Hell!" Still on the scaffold, Gyokumen seemed to have at last succumbed to the madness of her own creation, silksmooth voice near shattered, her once immaculate hair hanging crazily around her contorted face. The Minus Wave's pulse shivered her heartbeat, stopped it, then commanded it beat again in proper time with itself. _Kill. Kill. Kill._  
  
She laughed and it took her laughter into itself, echoed it, amplified it. Her insane eyes settled on those who had not joined the irritating priest in retaining consciousness. She commanded and the Wave relayed.  
  
It whispered to Dokugakuji with her voice and  
  
_murderer_  
  
his eyes flew open. Images spilled out before them like blood from a wound, he was face down staring at dirty concrete so how could he be watching his mother slide forward limply off the edge of his sword when he knew it was only a memory?  
  
_traitor_  
  
His own mind rebelled, refusing to cooperate when he tried to tell himself it wasn't real, that he hadn't let Gojyo die and that  
  
_kill the human_  
  
he hadn't let his Prince die either, not yet, except Kou's eyes looked so young in the afternoon sun with blood pouring down his neck and  
  
_Killkillkillkill_  
  
he shook with the force of it, the burning need to protect what was precious to him, even if that meant ripping out the throat of the weak, fragile human who dared harm a packmate and her voice was wind hissing in his ears and all he could see was  
  
_red_  
  
Sanzo meanwhile remained utterly oblivious to the danger. The monk was, after all, facing a far more obvious threat in the form of Gyuu-zilla (now with sword wielding action). Not to mention the fact that a person tended to not pay attention to his or her surroundings as much when simultaneously trying to figure out just how the royal fuck one was supposed to fight a god of destruction without sutra or gun or even a sharp pointy stick to help things along.  
  
Thus being stabbed in the back came as somewhat of a rude awakening.  
  
Jien's charge from behind took Sanzo in the shoulder, summoned blade slicing clean and deep. The monk half twisted as he staggered back, a snarled curse on his lips, and the surprise on his face at the identity of his attacker might have been a little bit gratifying to a certain pair of youkai not present and a certain monkey not awake. For all the blond's bitching about the general untrustworthiness of the youkai race, there were souls Sanzo instinctively recognized and responded to as Lawful Good (or at least Lawful Neutral or Chaotic Good) and Jien's was one of them. Youkai were walking time bombs under the Minus Wave, yes. Some of them, though, he'd grown accustomed to believing as strong enough to hold onto their sense of self. He hadn't been expecting betrayal from someone who'd killed their own mother to save an innocent child from being murdered.  
  
But then, it all had to do with personal weakness. A basic, decent personality was not enough to save one from his or her own flaws. Rikudo had taught him that.  
  
Blood dripping from between his fingers where he clutched at the wound, Sanzo found his voice. "Nevermind. I'm killing you first."  
  
Jien's empty eyes mocked him. The canines were bared in a growl, the muscles trembled as though in fury (or hunger), but there was no drive of rationality or even desire behind it. An animal with the frothing mouth disease did not recognize its own sickness. It operated on instinct and that which drove it to attack where it would not ordinarily, to kill where it would not ordinarily.  
  
Rabid creatures had to be put down or at the very least contained. Sanzo set himself up grimly in fighting stance, hoping a good solid chop to the neck would drop the bastard before Jien did something to force him into taking more permanent action. Gojyo was a strange guy; Sanzo knew that (eventually) he'd be forgiven about the shooting thing (whereas Hakkai probably never would), but if he came back dragging Jien's corpse there would be hell to pay.  
  
Cursing the gods sounded like a better idea than dealing with any of it. He just loved these little win-win situations they seemed to delight in presenting him with.  
  
And to make matters that much more complicated, there was a sudden surge of heat from the left, and the blond's wary sideways glance revealed a newly conscious Rasetsunyo rising to her feet, cloaked in fire, amethyst eyes unfocused and a frighteningly serene expression on her face. Rasetsunyo was one of those creepy people like Hakkai who, as they got closer to absolute zero on the About To Go Completely Fucking Postal Meter, the more they managed to look perfectly calm or even pleasant.  
  
Well, shit. So much for that garbage about high ranking youkai being more resistant to the effects of the Minus Wave. Even if it were true, it wasn't much help in this scenario. And if Gojyo was sure to pitch a hissy fit about a dead brother, Sanzo shuddered to think what hysterics Kougaiji would go through over a dead Empress.  
  
And she'd certainly been one of the most useful of his tagalongs thus far. Fux. He didn't want to kill them.  
  
He was also waiting for the monkey to get up and face off with him as well just to make his shitty day complete. But Goku for once disappointed his expectations (not that this was a bad thing), and remained sprawled boneless in the rubble. The monkey wasn't a true youkai, after all. Apparently all a concentrated Minus Wave could do with his tiny simian brain was overload it until it shut down of its own accord, instead of rewriting anything inside it.  
  
Neither help nor hindrance from that end. Useless ape.  
  
"Come on, you assholes," Sanzo snarled, backing up to get both brainwashed zombies in his line of sight. Jien he thought he could take. Rasetsunyo hell no without the sutra, but really, what was another probably hopeless battle stacked up on top of the one that ultimately awaited him? At least Gyumaoh appeared to have stopped moving, perhaps waiting to watch the scuffle between allies along with his tramp on the scaffolding.  
  
...tramp on the scaffolding. Her standing in front of her machines. Source of the Minus Wave.  
  
A Great and Mighty Revelation suddenly occurred to Sanzo in the form of an earlier, silly idle thought recalled for no apparent reason, and he seized on it desperately to formulate a plan. Not much of one, he would freely admit. But it was better than getting chopped up or fried or eaten, or more likely, suffering all three one after the other.  
  
He risked a look away from his two opponents to search for a subject with potential. There were lots laying around, no surprise given the explosions of earlier on, and he managed to snag one easily enough.  
  
Sparing a thought of fervent thankfulness that Hakkai the strategist was not here to see him do something so monumentally retarded, the monk targeted a brightly glowing congregation of metal things (the more glowy the more important, he rationalized) and let fly with his last hope.  
  
He threw a rock.  
  
Yes.  
  
A rock.  
  
And this thrown rock smashed the illuminated cluster of stuff rather neatly, wreaking mad damage upon what turned out, miraculously, to be a bunch of power conductors supplying electrical current to the machines. The lights on one entire side of the equipment tower began to blink furiously and a high whining noise began building up to a pitch, indicated overload. More caterwauling came from the bitch at the console. Then both lights and noise simultaneously went dead.  
  
_Score,_ Sanzo thought. Jien and Rasetsunyo, who'd been slowly advancing on him, stopped in their tracks. Jien shook his head violently and staggered sideways a little, as though he were tipsy. Kougaiji's mother merely blinked, confusion flickering across her face. Her flames dimmed and wavered like a candle on the verge of being blown out.  
  
Higher ranking youkai. She was more likely to come out of it than Jien. So Sanzo yelled at her, "I shot your son in the throat today!"  
  
Her eyes abruptly focused on him. Sanity flooded back into her expression, followed swiftly by outrage. "You did WHAT?!"  
  
Sanzo pointed up at Gyokumen. "I mean, _she_ shot your son in the throat today!"  
  
Rasetsunyo shrieked in rage and, still a bit addled by the lust for violence pounding in her head, struck without a second thought at the target presented her. A veritable firestorm abruptly roared out of nothingness to engulf the equipment tower. Gyokumen Kyushu managed a yowl of disbelief and a single step back before being incinerated, thus solving the dispute over who got to kill her. When he finally de-zombified, Jien was going to sulk like a high school prom queen stood up by her date, Sanzo thought distantly, watching the tower's destruction. Its framework began to glow a bright, cherry red after only a few seconds, losing all kinds of basic structural integrity as was metal's inevitable habit when superheated. It sagged and collapsed in on itself, dripping molten steel to puddle and steam on the dank, debris strewn floor.  
  
Melting the machines seemed to have much the same reduction effect on the Minus Wave that throwing rocks did. Probably a much greater one. Jien was on his knees again looking traumatized, which seemed to be a popular expression for him today. At least he'd not passed out at the sudden reclamation of his sanity.  
  
Sanzo strode over to where his monkey still lay senseless and kicked him. "Oi, saru. Wake the hell up."  
  
Goku did, groggily mumbling that he would never, ever play in front of speeding trains again. And that he was hungry.  
  
Kanzeon cackled to hirself. "Rocks."  
  
And then there was only Gyumaoh to deal with.  
  
...........  
  
_  
Ze Obligatory Interlude of Rampant D00m and AU-ness_  
  
It must be mentioned at this point, dear readers, a few matters of history that without which none of this presently will make any sense.  
  
One of these matters concerns the very bad habits of the Sanzo-ikkou (and they have many, many bad habits.) Arguably the worst of these is their tendency to meet interesting people on the Journey West, spark a few intriguing conversations and probably some fights, then ram headlong into some irresolvable difference that motivates Sanzo to shoot the other party in question dead. Then the ikkou moves on and repeats the cycle a few days/weeks/whatever later.  
  
To put it bluntly, very few are the people who survive the attentions of the monk and his companions. If they do, it's usually because of an accident or a retreat (and too few idiots seize upon this as a viable way out) or else some other ridiculous form of self-resurrection. The ikkou are at war with the world. They blame their lethal retaliation on the pre-emptive first offensives of everyone else, and perhaps it is justified. If someone tries to kill you, after all, it is only natural to object, and object violently. And if said someone happens to die in the end of the fight, it was their own damn fault for picking it in the first place.  
  
Sanzo and Co. take advantage of this moral loophole on a daily basis. It wasn't their fault that most of their fights seemed to end in such decisive fatalities. One could even construe that as a nod to tactical logic. Leaving a live opponent on the path behind is to invite a stab in the back. So it was only logical, really, that the ikkou rarely (read: never) spared the lives of their enemies.  
  
This is not to say that they are heartless and dispassionate slaughter machines. One or more of them had, in not a few instances, sincerely wished to avoid killing the opposing side. But never Sanzo. Sanzo was often the most prominent advocate for securing the certainty that nothing behind him would ever rise again to make trouble in the future.  
  
Until one day another priest on a divine mission and a mind numbingly unfashionable hat flounced, swishy-like, into their lives.  
  
His name was Hazel Glosse, (O.o;) a bishop from the West (not Tenjiku, the _other_ West), and he had come to Save the Imperiled Land of Togenkyou From the Youkai Scourge.  
  
The mission statement alone won the man a few gold stars in Sanzo's Extremely Messed Up Character Judgement Book, if only because it seemed to irritate his companions. So he refrained from shooting Hazel on sight for being a copycat. That, and the other priest was fabulously swishy. Sanzo hadn't seen so much conflicted vulnerability and fronted arrogance parading around in such a shiny, silver tongued, high handed package since ...well, ever. Kami-sama might have been prettier, but the decay in his soul made him about as attractive to Sanzo's very discriminating tastes as a month dead corpse. And oh so self righteous Homura, in truth a suffering man pushed far too close to the edge, had willingly chosen his own deluded arrogance and allowed it to blind him.  
  
Hazel had the poison butterfly sickness of Kami-sama in his spirit, but it was not rooted so deep as to become inseparable. Hazel had the tragedy of a fallen War God behind his arrogant sapphire eyes, but had not doomed himself to following a suicidal path. Hazel could still be saved, or better yet, could still save himself, if only someone gave him a reason to do so.  
  
But Sanzo was not in the business of playing savior. Humans and youkai alike were fundamentally weak. Let them live and die on terms of their own strength, or lack thereof. He had no time to waste on the reformation of idiots.  
  
When Hazel said it was destiny that they had met, Sanzo summoned all his disdain and threw it in the silver haired man's face. He was not, repeat was _not_, going to be anyone else's savior. And Kanzeon could go jump in a swamp if se thought Sanzo's refusal to do so was going to be swayed by a pretty face and a shockingly coincidental sob story of a history. Let the devoted shikigami rescue his master. Or let the bishop's own sacrificed god lead his follower's soul to redemption (but the gods save no one, Sanzo's mind whispered.) And, finally, there was also the matter of..  
  
_Blood. Rain. Tears.  
  
"I leave the rest to you, Genjyo Sanzo."_  
  
Sanzo wasn't worthy of being anyone's savior.  
  
Hazel took rejection badly (yet another thing they had in common) and promptly flipped out. Sanzo waited patiently for the chance to shoot him. No more Hazel meant no more internal conflict, and Sanzo really, really disliked being kept up at night by his own disquieting thoughts (no chance of getting someone else to exhaust his body until it drowned out his mind, either, because the monkey was still Too Young and Hakkai and Gojyo had been very put out with him at the time).  
  
So Sanzo had been just as surprised as the rest of them when the Appropriate Dramatic Moment For Spouting Truisms and Shooting People Dead came, and the monk did not pull the trigger.  
  
"You're an idiot," Sanzo told the stricken man before him instead. "Pride and your own ideals of revenge are the only things keeping you on this so-called divine mission, so stop killing the goddamned youkai and let me deal with them. That's my job. You're no good at it."  
  
Hazel (along with everyone else) was doing a credible imitation of a landed fish. He didn't seem to be able to find any words to protest, or even look away, but maybe that was just because the Smith&Wesson was still pressed to the bishop's forehead.  
  
The blond continued grimly. "If you really want to protect the people here, do it with your own strength. Creating an army of shikigami to exterminate all youkai isn't going to save anyone in the end. Especially not," and Sanzo leaned down to speak to shell of one ear, whispering, "an already murdered master, or the child you once were. Grow the fuck up."  
  
Then he turned away in a dramatic swirl of white robes, leaving Hazel speechless, lying in the dust, to stare after him.  
  
Hatless, too, although the bishop was far too shaken to notice until well into the next day. Halfway to the next town in the Jeep, Sanzo was refusing to talk to anyone after initially plunking a familiar oogly tri-corner hat down on Goku's head and remarking cryptically that people with really pale skin should do themselves favors and get tanned faces, because otherwise it was pathetically easy to tell when they were blushing.  
  
Sanzo didn't know himself if he'd stolen the hat to keep Hazel from following or to encourage it. Either way, the Journey continued on.  
  
END Part Four  
  
  
OUTTAKES  
  
(Scene: KANZEON screeches at JIROUSHIN to bring the popcorn)  
  
KANZEON: ...and some Milk Duds! And make sure there's butter and salt on that popcorn!  
  
JIROUSHIN: I thought you were on a diet.  
  
KANZEON: Oh I'm sure I'll work off the calories rolling around and laughing myself sick in the next ten minutes.  
  
JIROUSHIN: ..point.(Scene: SANZO stands before a defeated HAZEL, ready to make his speech)  
  
SANZO: You're an idiot. Pride and your own ideals (finger slips on trigger and the gun goes off)  
  
HAZEL: (dies)  
  
IKKOU: ...  
  
SANZO: 6.6 ...I meant to do that.

(Take Two: SANZO stands before a defeated HAZEL)  
  
SANZO: (makes his speech) ...blahblahblah...grow the fuck up.  
  
HAZEL: ...mmkay, Dr. Phil.

(Take Three: SANZO stands before a defeated HAZEL)  
  
SANZO: (begins speech) ...yadda yadda...  
  
GATO: (tackles him from nowhere and carts him off)  
  
HAZEL: (to the IKKOU) Booya, bizatches! Victoly is MINE!  
  
GOJYO: ...y'know, you can have him. His speeches suck.


	5. Episode 5: The Zombies Strike Back

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Well, almost nothing.

* * *

PART FIVE

_In Which Hakkai Gets His Revenge_

_or,_

_The Long Awaited Smackdown of Gyuu-zilla_

_-_

Gyokumen Kyushu was dead. The thought should have been exhilarating or at least satisfying. Jien found only that his lip hurt where he'd bitten through it under the influence of the Minus Wave and that he was mortally tired. He wanted Kou here, just to see for himself that the Prince was safe, so he could go ahead and take a week long nap and have no reason to feel guilty about it.

Sanzo was frowning as he stared at the melted tower, something occurring to him belatedly. There was a sutra somewhere under all that mess. Probably two. Also his gun and Hazel's pendant, which he really wanted an explanation about on how it had come to be here.

"Dammit!"

He'd worry about it later. The sutras were holy artifacts and nigh indestructible. So likely was the pendant. The gun was not, and he was missing it sorely, but he'd proven already today that he didn't need a firearm to kick ass. Plus, a gun would do nothing against a demon king anyway. He took a quick inventory of his other weapons; namely, party members.

Not himself and not Jien. Obviously.

Rasetsunyo was looking somewhat worse for wear, having fireballed more people and things in the last few hours than she had in the last few years before her sealing. Sanzo had seen enough of Kougaiji's fights to know that the Empress' pyrotechnic skills and related endurance ability far exceeded her son's, but the fact remained that she was tiring, little by little. Evidently incendiary magic was something like chi, and needed to be regenerated after extensive use.

The ugly look she was giving her resurrected husband had plenty of fire left behind it, though.

Sanzo came to the inevitable last of the lineup with a purely mental sigh. He had known the answer all along anyway, as he stepped up behind Son Goku and asked, very quietly, if the boy was ready to earn his keep.

"What if I end up hurting you?" Goku asked just as softly, his eyes aging five hundred years in an instant. He watched the towering form ponderously making its way towards them through the inferno.

"Che. I'll kill you if you try."

Goku pretended to think about it. "Will you give up smoking if I win?" (This had been a common argument lately, upon learning the phrase 'death by lung cancer' from an ever informative and sneakily insidious Hakkai.)

The monk snorted. "Hell no."

"Okay." A deep breath. "Just..."

"What?"

Goku turned and buried his face against Sanzo's chest, fists clutching tightly at the remains of tattered white robes. Hiding from the world, if only for a moment, taking comfort in his own personal sanctuary before he would be forced from it.

Moved by some strange sense of finality, Sanzo allowed the embrace, his own arms settling naturally around the boy. Goku had not clung to him so desperately since the first few days of his release from imprisonment. Doing so again, here and now, was a strange, almost ominous symmetry.

It implied that they had somehow come full circle.

No longer a child, Sanzo repeated to himself in vague incredulity, chocolate hair soft and silky and familiar under his hand. Had not been a child since……since when? How had he missed the arrival of this sudden stranger in his arms, who talked back and not because he was whining but because he was _right_ and asserted (somewhat) valid opinions and expected things from Sanzo like a modicum of civility and the consideration adults gave to other adults?

Freaky. The child he'd rescued from a stone prison had at last grown into his own mind. Really, where had Sanzo been, to miss it happening right under his nose? (Not to mention between his sheets.)

How very...unexpected. He'd never gotten to this part with Koumyou, the sole source of knowledge he had to draw on for his own _stellar_ (har) parenting skills. How very…

Bittersweet.

Goku mumbled something inaudible against him, voice muffled and indistinct. Sanzo heard it clearly anyway, the words both silent and endlessly echoing inside his own mind.

"_I still love you, you know."_

Fuck their audience. Sanzo leaned down to kiss him deeply as he removed the limiter.

_I know._

The Seiten Taisei stepped back from an insignificant human, golden eyes slitted, and turned its little bloodmad half smile on the approaching Gyumaoh.

_-_

_And A Short While Later_

In hindsight, Sanzo reflected as he ran for his life, perhaps letting the Seiten Taisei loose to battle Gyumaoh hadn't been the best plan he'd ever come up with.

Oh sure, it seemed like a good idea. Berserker god thing versus undead god thing made much more sense than anybody else versus undead god thing. And Gyumaoh really was undead, rather than resurrected with all memory, intellect, and ability intact, as Gyokumen had surely intended. Her scientists had either not been doing their homework or neglected to tell her on purpose how impossible such a thing was. Sealings stamped with the signature of Heaven were not meant to be undone. So while the demon king's body moved, and the organs functioned, his mind existed only in the eternity of his last moment of life. Not quite the textbook definition of undead (see The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks for further details), but close enough for government work.

And goody for Our Intrepid Heroes, because the undead were also unfailingly stupid. Usually. Too bad for Rasetsunyo, who had wanted her husband to perceive and know that she was free, that she was rebelling, and that she was going to do her damndest to send him on his merry way to Hell so he would never bother her or her son again.

She was disappointed at the near mindless zombification. She would get over it.

Undead or not, Gyumaoh evidently possessed enough brainpower (or memory) still to recognize certain aspects of his surroundings as well as speak. A single name was all he seemed to be able to manage, half growling, half articulating it, when his baleful red glare fell on the slight figure before him, fierce golden eyes utterly devoid of anything resembling sanity.

"**_Na…ta…ku…."_** Like an avalanche of gravel; sonorous, earth shaking and eerily hollow. The castle's foundations trembled.

It was hard to tell from a distance, but Sanzo could have sworn he saw the Seiten Taisei freeze, stiffen. The name meant nothing to him, except in the legends and history of five hundred years past he'd learned about in his youth, that it had been --

"_Nataku! His name's Nataku and he's my friend and can we go visit him today, can we Konzen?" begged a bright eyed child wearing chains_

-- Toushin Nataku Taishi who had first assaulted Houtou Castle and subdued its self-proclaimed Emperor, Gyumaoh. Other than that, Sanzo had no clue. Goku had never mentioned anything, but then Goku might not remember it.

The Seiten Taisei was a different story, and reacted to the name with a shocking display of violence that left even Sanzo, who'd seen the creature's methods before, momentarily speechless. He, Rasetsunyo and Jien could only watch (and occasionally dodge or destroy incoming debris) as the battle tore down half the castle around them. Things only escalated from there when Gyumaoh, crashing out into the open, suddenly had room to maneuver and bring that huge ass sword of his into play. The Seiten Taisei really didn't seem to mind too much. Or even notice, for that matter.

It had been a very, very bad idea to wear white (as Jien and Rasetsunyo and Sanzo all were, coincidentally), because there was no way one was ever going to get the stains out when blood literally started raining from the sky.

And then the zombies had shown up.

_-_

_And Elsewhere_

Jiroushin returned from refilling another bucket of popcorn (this would make the third or fourth) to find the Merciful Goddess' throne….not occupied by the Merciful Goddess.

"You!"

"Me," agreed the ghost in a pleasant drawl, lanky form sprawled all over Kanzeon's white chair thing. "Nice to see you again too."

Jiroushin realized he was gaping and his jaw abruptly snapped shut with a click. It was impolite to stare. He then floundered for something appropriate to say, and settled on the rather lame, ".....what are you doing here?"

"Sitting," the ghost deadpanned. He got a Look of Not Amused from the popcorn-bearing kami.

Touche. The ghost relented enough to state that 'Hir Hermaphroditeness had stepped out for a few moments, and he was just there to keep the seat warm.'

"Oh. Well. I see." Not an unfamiliar explanation. Kanzeon was fond of taking off at a moment's notice, usually after coercing someone at random to sit in hir throne and 'watch things' while se was gone. Jiroushin didn't like it and the bodhisattiva knew it, but there was really not much Jiroushin could do about it, and se knew that too.

Kanzeon's second set down the bucket of butter smothered popcorn (shudder) and squinted at the newcomer with faint suspicion. "Did someone amend your sentence when I wasn't looking? I thought you were supposed to be sealed down in Gekai until...."

"Shhh." The other gave him a golden eyed, conspiratorial wink. "I'm on probation for good behavior. Half a day of free wheeling astral existence and then I go back." He shuddered slightly and affected a morose expression. "That river is bloody _freezing_ this time of year, I'll have you know."

Jiroushin eyed the ghost flatly. "There's no way Tentei would have approved a change in your sentencing and besides, you don't _do_ good behavior."

The 'criminal' grinned up at him. "So call it unofficial probation, courtesy of your employer."

Sigh. "You begged hir let you come and watch the finale, didn't you." It was not a question.

"Bribed, actually. I do have a certain vested interest in the proceedings and I'd like to know how everything turns out."

"You'll get in even worse trouble if you're caught here."

There might have been an iota of concern in the kami's voice, and the ghost pounced on it gleefully, teeth bared in a wicked grin. "Oi! What's this? Jiro-chan the hard ass feeling sorry for little ol' me?"

"Absolutely _not_," Jiroushin huffed. "You brought all of this on yourself."

Tiger gold eyes pinned him with a piercing stare, utterly devoid of previous humor although the tone of voice remained light and easy. "That's right, little kami. I did this all to myself. My actions were carried out with full knowledge of the consequences. I chose to pay this price." His words were slightly forced, as if he'd recited them before (or been forced to recite them before) many, many times.

Jiroushin said nothing, uncomfortable.

The ghost watched him for a second and then, deciding the bodyguard (fidgeting like a errant schoolboy, he noted with satisfaction) was appropriately chastised for speaking so inconsiderately, changed the subject like lightning.

"By the way, have you seen the keys to these handcuffs?" Something rattled behind the throne, and Jiroushin got an answer as to why he hadn't yet seen the ghost's hands as they were lifted enough to show off shiny, velvet lined silver handcuffs. "I want some of that popcorn before Kanzeon gets back. I'm sure I'll need the extra energy, given what se's got planned." The ghost made a face. "Way too much compensation for breaking me out of stasis, if you ask me. I hope I don't pull a muscle or anything in the middle. I'm so out of practice."

Jiroushin went red and made a strangled noise, seemingly on the verge of a stroke or something, and only after a long moment was recovered enough to coordinate shoving the popcorn at the prisoner-about-to-be-victim of his mistress' decidedly undivine entertainments (not that the 'victim' was complaining at all, being an old, old acquaintance and long used to How Things Worked within Kanzeon's system of 'favors for favors'). Then the poor much abused bodyguard turned and fled.

"Thanks!" the ghost called after him, pleased at having successfully rattled the kami's composure. He knew Jiroushin probably hadn't meant to offend, but even forgivable rudeness had to be met with disciplinary measures before it blossomed into full blown Asshole Syndrome (current posterchild, one Genjyo Sanzo).

Still, that was neither here nor there. He tossed some of the nasty dripping popcorn in his mouth and returned his eyes to Kanzeon's lotus pond/big screen TV used for watching over Gekai (and sometimes peeping at the Ikkou), waiting patiently for the battle that would decide the fate of the world.

_-_

_And Other Elsewhere_

"Uno," said Gojyo, smacking down his last card with a smug expression. "I win, ladies."

Lirin promptly accused him of cheating. And tackled him, which was not very nice because Gojyo, while mostly recovered thanks to the work of a certain chi manipulator, had still been shot in the throat earlier that day. He attempted to point this out to his attacker and got a boot to the forehead, which evidently reminded him of squabbling with Goku, because he stopped trying to be polite and soon had the youkai girl in an unbreakable headlock.

"Don't make me sit on you, kid!"

Lirin squawked in rage and tried to punch him in the nuts.

An also recovered Kougaiji, who was trying very very hard to pretend that his sister didn't exist while reshuffling the cards, still got one of those twitchy vein things going in his forehead.

Hakkai and Yaone both sighed.

"Where the fuck are they all coming from?" Sanzo growled, dodging another swipe from youkai (undead youkai, too) claws. He let the slavering creature lunge past him, turning and targeting its spinal column with the side of his hand, stiffened into iron. Sanzo really wasn't much for wasting time dancing around kicking peoples' asses barehanded, but he'd been drilled in martial arts at Kinzan like every other apprentice there and his skills, while admittedly a bit rusty, were still quite good enough to dispatch the mindless walking dead.

"Hell if I know," Jien snapped back, slicing through the vacant drooling grin of another with his sword and, predictably, getting it stuck in the process. "Shit!" He tugged uselessly, very very much not liking the closing distance between himself and the next oncoming wave of zombies.

"Idiot." Sanzo broke the neck of one trying to come at them from the side. His temper was fraying quickly due to nicotine withdrawal. And he wanted his gun. Really, really, really wanted his gun, and his sutra. "Don't you keep that thing sharpened?"

Jien only snarled in reply and, planting his boot on the offending corpse, yanked back with all his strength. The sword came free with a disgusting noise and a spurt. His triumphant little grin turned abruptly into a grimace as the first of the new wave drew within range, forcing him to retreat a pace until he came up short against Sanzo's back. There were more of them facing the monk.

Surrounded.

"Don't suppose you can call your monkey off the big guy long enough to get him to give us a hand?" Jien drawled softly, calm tone at odds with the white knuckled grip on his sword hilt.

"Not a chance." Exhaustion was making the monk's voice almost normal, flat only with strain instead of irritation/superiority/disdain.

"Hm. Didn't think so. You ready to go, then?"

"....yeah."

They turned as one and charged straight at the zombie horde, aiming for a thinning of the ranks where they might, maybe possibly if their luck held, be able to break through. They were. They ran like hell.

Back to Rasetsunyo, the only one of them having any success in mowing down large numbers at a time, which was more or less the only effective way of defeating a zombie army. They'd initially abandoned her (gotten the hell out of the way, truth be told) because, for some reason, zombies really, really seemed to offend the Empress and her firestorms grew less controlled and discriminating in their targets as her rage intensified and her strength ebbed. As the saying went, 'friendly fire isn't.' So they'd struck out on their own to avoid getting charred crispy by accident. Now, spontaneous incineration was a risk they were prepared to take if it meant a chance to get their wind back.

"You do it," Jien panted, leaning forward with hands on his knees and too tired to watch his mouth. "We suck at this." Sanzo glared and retorted, "Speak for yourself."

The Empress obliged. Dozens died (re-died?) in mid drool/slaver, erased to nothing but grease and ashes in the blink of an eye. There was triumph in her eyes, but no blood left in her pale, taut face and no reserves at all in the gaunt weariness that had become the reality of her body. It becomes painful when she goes past the limit of her magical endurance, not unlike a pulled muscle, but this is an ache in her spirit and she can recognize the telltale signs of impending burnout.

"I'm fine," is all she says to answer the monk's wordless, suspicious scrutiny. She wondered if he could tell she was lying.

Sanzo could. And it was he who caught her when she finally staggered, vision dimming to gray and deadly flames fizzling away to nothing, as the undeterred undead youkai charged them in a tidal rush.

Gojyo would have been proud, Sanzo thought distantly. Here he would get to die with a beautiful woman in his arms, which according to the halfbreed, was the best way to go. Sanzo didn't see anything so great about it, but then he was admittedly feeling a tad pessimistic at the moment. No, even with that aside. This bit. Hard. Gojyo was such a strange person to insist otherwise.

And Gojyo's brother was a stranger person, stepping between them and the oncoming throng to brandish a dripping sword, the very image of stalwart heroism. No wonder the kappa was so hung up over him.

"The fuck do you think you're doing?" Sanzo demanded wearily, levering a barely conscious Empress up to her feet with one arm thrown over his shoulder. He couldn't exactly run with her, but they could probably make it to a defensible pile of debris ….if someone volunteered to play decoy and keep the zombies at a distance in the meantime. Sanzo, however, was not going to admit to himself that he needed the help, much less articulate it as a request to another person.

Jien must have guessed anyway, for the tall youkai only spared a glance at what to him seemed an incredibly dumb question. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Something stupid."

"You _would_ say that." Jien turned back to face their attackers. "I'm just doing my duty to protect the Empress, priest. That's all."

Sanzo shrugged. "Your funeral." Nobility was such an exasperating trait.

"Guess so." Jien might have been smiling.

They made it halfway to the nearest likely defensible position before they were overrun.

-

With a most gawdy FLASH of lightning and CRACK of thunder, the great Kanzeon Bosatsu descended from heaven and appeared directly in front of Hakkai, Gojyo, and the others. Unfortunately, as impressive as the special effects were, they had precisely the wrong effect on a group who had today endured Sanzo's foul temper and gunshots. So when Kanzeon demanded irately just what the hell they all thought they were doing, se promptly got 1) chi blast, 2) fireball, 3) pinless grenade, 4) shakujou blade, and 5) boulder heaved by Lirin, all in the face at the same time.

"Oh, sorry. We thought you were the monk." Gojyo sheepishly retracted the chain of his weapon.

Kanzeon glared, singed but otherwise unhurt. The crescent blade se'd caught. The boulder se'd batted aside. The grenade, fireball and chi blast ....got through. Jiroushin was going to have a cat over the state of hir silks when se got back, which under normal circumstances concealed hardly anything and now concealed absolutely nothing.

Kougaiji made a strangled noise and clapped his hands over Lirin's eyes. Hakkai's eyebrow twitched. Yaone averted her gaze politely, blushing.

Gojyo ogled shamelessly. "Well, surprise surprise. What can we do you for, Miss Bloodsucker?" he asked amiably, as if the figure he addressed was not a nearly omnipotent bodhisattiva and he'd not been trying to decapitate hir three seconds ago. Presence of cleavage did strange things to Gojyo's mind. "Need a transfusion for blondie again or were you just dying to get another taste of a good thing?"

Kanzeon restrained the urge to deck him, holding onto hir temper by thinking of what was waiting for hir, chained to hir throne when se got back to Tenkai. "General," se said firmly, ignoring the way he twitched uneasily at that particular address, "I'm here only to sort out what seems to be a very big misunderstanding."

"Oh?"

"As I recall," se began, letting hir annoyed gaze shift to the Marshal and, for the moment, ignoring the three youkai who were all discretely edging away, "there were four of you on a divine mission to go West and attempt to stop Gyumaoh's resurrection. Four. And yet I see two of you here now, quite far away from where said attempt to stop the resurrection is going on. You can count, can't you boys? Four minus two equals two, and two is _not_ the number of people I sent on a divine mission. Pray tell, what sort of excuse do you have to explain this simple mathematical error?"

Hakkai refused to look guilty in the face of hir irritation. "Sanzo left us behind," he replied blandly. "He seemed very adamant that we not follow him any further."

"Fucker shot me," Gojyo muttered sulkily.

"And the Prince as well," Hakkai added, polite self-righteousness oozing from his tone. "I was obliged, and ordered by Sanzo, to stay and heal them."

"So that absolves you of any wrongdoing in this fiasco, does it?" A lesser man would have quailed in the face of such falsely, dangerous sweet venom.

The reincarnation of Tenpou Gensui was not a lesser man. "Yes," he said simply.

Kanzeon restrained the urge to deck him, too.

"But now that your eminent self is here," and Hakkai swept into a deep bow, "perhaps you can suggest how we might correct the situation to your satisfaction?"

Hakkai was being catty, Gojyo noted. Hakkai only got catty when he was really pissed off, which meant he was still stewing over the shooting of allies thing and being left behind. Which was all well and good, Gojyo was still kinda pissed about it too.

The halfbreed nearly ruined the atmosphere by chuckling. The monk was way in for it when they caught up to him.

Kanzeon had several suggestions, as it turned out. One of them being that Hakkai was no longer allowed to speak. The other was that when they were dropped off at Houtou Castle by 'hir Eminent Self,' (and honestly, ran the common unspoken thought, why couldn't the bodhisattiva have just teleported them there in the first place instead of making the ikkou drive all the way from China?) that they really quickly come up with a way to defeat zombies.

"The Makai Tenjyo?" Gojyo submitted cautiously in place of the Hakkai ordered mute. Kougaiji muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'and why do _we_ have to go along?' but didn't put up any real protest, because going to the rescue of the monk was also going to the rescue of Jien and getting a chance to beat the hell out of said monk afterwards.

The Goddess of Love and Mercy clucked at them all in reproach. Se seemed in a better mood after describing in great detail the long and difficult (and likely fatal, se stated gleefully) battle they were all about to face. At least se'd had the decency to dump a few Curagas on the injured/exhausted before booting them off to fight.

"Not this time. The resurrection of Gyumaoh hasn't only destroyed the balance of the universe with the Minus Wave, it has broken down the barriers between worlds. In order to retrieve a vanquished spirit, one must open a path to the place where they reside. And once that path is open, it is impossible to halt the flow of souls between the two worlds."

"In other words..." Kougaiji shut up and backed off when Kanzeon looked at him. After Nataku and Homura, the direct attention any kami made him nervous. Kanzeon and Kanzeon's direct attention made him _very_ nervous, and not just because of hir impressive .....temper.

"In other words," se finished for him, jiggling just a little to watch him squirm (how cute when he blushed like that, se thought in malicious delight. The boy really was a very pretty piece of ass. Rasetsunyo had done something right when she'd brought his father to bed….despite all the messy, messy problems that had caused afterwards. Still. Who knew heretics threw such lovely children?) "Anything that's been killed in the vicinity will not stay dead, because the souls just flow right back out through the rip in the barrier."

Yaone went a shade paler than normal. "Anything?" She got a nod of confirmation from the still (slightly) jiggling (and leering) bodhisattiva. "But....but that would mean all of the soldiers in the castle ......every garrison in the area....they're _all unkillable?"_

"Bitchy, ain't it? Anyhoo, not my problem, and this is your stop. Have fun!" Kanzeon was suddenly in a bit of a hurry to get gone (sharply reminded by Red Boy and subsequent speculations on the prettiness of Red Boy's ass of the feast chained conveniently to hir throne at home) and se disappeared in flash of light.

Everyone else was dropped into the middle of a nightmare.

-

Houtou Castle was on fire and half collapsed to boot. Huge chunks of stone and timber had been strewn haphazardly over the rocky earth like children's toys across a playroom floor. Silhouetted against the flames was the towering form of what could only be the demon king/god of destruction/pain in the celestial ass Gyumaoh, bellowing gutturally in rage and trying without much success to crush….

"Goku," whispered Hakkai, stunned despite himself. Well, not Goku. Goku's other extremely bitchtastic unkillable unstoppable hell monkey self. He could feel it from here; only the Seiten Taisei generated such a massive aura of raw, primal energy, like the power behind a thunderstorm or an earthquake. Jiipu vacated his shoulder quickly, offering a squeaky "kyuu" before seeking someplace safe to wait out the impending battle.

Gojyo, for once more on the ball than his lover, was shouting someone else's name in the other direction. The sudden whistle of the shakujou's chain brought Hakkai back to himself. He wheeled, taking in at a glance the sight of Jien and Sanzo (holding a….woman? With red hair?) going down under a veritable tidal wave of youkai (Kanzeon's zombies, evidently) not more than ten or so meters from their own position. The crescent blade of the shakujou (and bless Gojyo for choosing a weapon that could operate at a distance) decapitated four of the zombies before burying itself messily in the gut of another. Kougaiji and Lirin were already charging, the former disinclined to use a fire attack that might hit Doku in such crowded quarters.

Hakkai, always quick on his feet, wasted no time in letting loose a massive burst of chi to plow through the thick of the horde. Yaone's explosives followed, targeting the ones that scattered, and by then the two red headed youkai were close enough to smash their way physically through the remaining ranks to reach the trio currently drowning in undead.

"I'm not thanking you," said a sulky and gore-splattered Sanzo five minutes later, when zombie corpses littered the field and they were all ensconced behind the relative safety of a large chunk of fallen castle wall. Jien gave the monk a disgusted look and rolled his eyes. Then he winced suddenly as Yaone pulled a bandage tight around one of his many oozing wounds. The deep slashes had already been taken care of, thanks to a generous application of chi. Lirin was out chasing zombies away from their makeshift shelter (and they really did keep getting back up, again and again, unless you shattered all their limbs into uselessness or otherwise caused them to violently lose structural integrity), preferring to deal damage rather than mess with people who'd sustained it.

Hakkai managed to look completely unsurprised at Sanzo's lack of effusive gratitude. Gojyo, playing sentry, was privately amused but not about to say anything. Between pissy monk and equally pissy healer, he sure as hell was staying out of the crossfire.

Kougaiji, for his part, was staring utterly speechless at the female youkai slumped senseless against the blackened wall, her beauty in no ways marred by the blood liberally coating her pale kimono and skin. The Prince seemed torn between going to her side and running the hell away.

Professional as ever, Hakkai sighed and steered the shellshocked youkai out of the way so he could at least see to the unknown woman's injuries. As it turned out she suffered only from exhaustion, and a brief surge of chi to coax her body out of burnout shock brought things back into order fairly quickly. Her labored breathing eased immediately and the strain left her face.

"Ah, may I assume that this is your lady mother?" Hakkai inquired delicately of the Prince, noting resignedly how Kougaiji's violet eyes were still unfocused (was everyone around him really so maladjusted that they went into shock at the drop of a hat?). Yaone had to answer for her lord, sending a brief, half worried half annoyed look at him over his unresponsiveness. "Correct, Hakkai-dono."

"You can thank me anytime, by the way," Sanzo drawled, leaning back against the wall and craving nicotine so badly it hurt. Or maybe that was his cracked rib. Ribs. Whatever.

Kougaiji's gaze wandered to the monk. "You did this?"

"_You_ certainly didn't."

That woke the redhead up, and he bit off a curse, looking away.

Hakkai wasn't about to let Sanzo get away with it, however. For one, it was needlessly rude and two, Hakkai still had a bone to pick. "Maa, one really shouldn't be wasting breath on unnecessary words with such damage to the torso and possible internal bleeding, Sanzo-sama," the healer said pleasantly, a merciless glint in his green eyes. "It may be some time before I can safely risk a full trance to repair everything. So in the meantime, please consider that the more you aggravate your injuries, the longer it will be before your insides are well enough to handle food or alcohol or even…" he paused for effect, "cigarette smoke."

The blond's eyes widened slightly, then abruptly narrowed. "You wouldn't."

Hakkai's answering smile was sunny and about as compromising as granite. "Wouldn't what? Do what's best for an injured patient so he or she may recover as soon as possible, even if that means breaking them of their unhealthy vices for their own good?"

Sanzo made a strangled noise.

"And don't think you're gonna mooch off me," Gojyo added over his shoulder, unable to resist joining in. "I think I might abstain for a week or so. Or maybe cut down to only one a day, as penance for my sins or something."

More garbled incoherency. Hakkai caught the word 'gun.' "Hai hai, of course," the healer agreed amiably. "I'm sure your gun survived the castle's collapse just fine and is waiting to be found underneath all that wreckage. Once it's recovered, you will most certainly be able to shoot us."

Sanzo swore at him; loudly, viciously, and at length.

Hakkai continued smiling serenely, secure in his victory.

Jiipu caught up with them moments later, clutching something proudly in his tiny little jaws. Hazel's pendant, which he had somehow dug out of the castle ruins (oddly enough, it had been waiting at the top, gleaming conspicuously in the afternoon light). He cheeped around the silver and deposited it in Sanzo's lap.

Sanzo scowled, but picked the ornament up. "My _gun_," he told the little dragon. "Next time, bring the _gun._"

"Pii," replied Jiipu in utter incomprehension (or self-amusing maliciousness. Who knew how much the dragon actually understood and inferred from his humans).

And still they had no solution to the zombie problem.

"You're sure Kannon told you nothing about how to defeat them?" Jien demanded of his brother's back, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that a bodhisattiva had actually come down from up on high to chastise them for abandoning (not like they'd had a choice) the monk. Privately he thought Sanzo himself could use a little divine chastisement. Honestly, didn't the gods care what sort of mentally disturbed, foul-mouthed mass murderers were representing their image on Earth?

"Not a damn word." Gojyo was watching Lirin beat up the same zombie for the sixth time in a row.

"Only the mechanism for their re-animation," Yaone added in quietly.

"Their souls flow right back..." Sanzo repeated, racking his exhausted brains. Stupid hag. Stupid companions who hadn't somehow forced or tricked a decent answer out of the stupid hag. Did he have to do everything himself?

Gojyo hefted the shakujou, a grim line hardening his mouth. "Sorry to cut the conversation short, ladies," he called back, not quite turning his gaze away from whatever he was looking at, "but we've got company." He stepped aside to let Lirin dash past, no longer quite so chipper and just a little bit creeped out by enemies that refused to stay down.

"Nii-chaaaaan, they just keep getting back up!" she whined, seeking assurance that her inability to win wasn't really her fault.

Hakkai stepped up next to Gojyo. Another sizeable crowd of undead had indeed gathered, staggering erratically but surely towards their little shelter. "They do seem to be persistent."

"We'll see how persistent they are after a Summon," Kougaiji said grimly, slowly getting to his feet. He was reluctant to leave his mother but knew, practically, that going out to take the fight to the zombies was far safer for her than letting them close in. "It should buy us some more time, at least."

Gojyo was eyeing the scattered horde. "I dunno. It'll be like trying to smash ants with a hammer. This isn't some big convenient target like that ugly crab shikigami thing, y'know."

One could almost see the lightbulb over Sanzo's head turn on.

"Shikigami," the priest breathed, intuition leaping to life in his mind. He sat up straighter, holding up the bit of silver Jiipu had brought him. "The pendant. The pendant can catch souls and keep the corpses from being reanimated."

It was a better plan than any other they'd come up, but Hakkai still sounded dubious. "Will we even be able to use it?"

Sanzo smiled humorlessly. "I saved that prat bishop's life," he said, his eyes focused on some far off point on the eastern horizon. "His God fucking owes me a miracle."

-

Despite the general implausibility of the whole thing, it went off without a hitch. The pendant was glowing faintly when the dust finally settled, and the dead youkai appeared finally inclined to lie still and rot quietly like normal corpses.

"Nice little fight," Gojyo commented, cleaning the blood off his weapon's blade.

An exhausted Jien gave his brother a Look, which Gojyo summarily ignored. Instead he queried of the party in general, "Sooooooo...now what?"

Hakkai was watching Gyumaoh and the Seiten Taisei (STILL fighting, amazingly enough). "I would suggest we retreat to a safe distance, and..."

"And?"

Hakkai spread his hands helplessly. "Wait for Goku to finish up so we can go home?"

Everyone agreed with Hakkai's sensible assessment that there was little point to interfering with the Seiten Taisei. He seemed to have things more or less under control (and would probably not take the intrusion well). Plus, no one really wanted to fight Gyumaoh.

Sanzo was scowling off at the general direction of the castle. He had finally suffered Hakkai to heal him, but the relief of vanished pain apparently wasn't enough to lighten a continuing foul mood. He wanted his sutras back, dammit.

Gojyo invited him to go ahead and start digging.

Sanzo punched Gojyo.

_Yaone_ punched Sanzo, thus halting the brawl in its tracks as the monk landed ungracefully on his ass in the dirt.

Everyone gawked.

"_That,"_ Yaone said fiercely, shaking out her aching hand, "was for shooting Kougaiji-sama earlier. And Sha-san. Honestly, how do you expect people to stay around you with such violent and rude habits?"

Sanzo was for once without words, staring. This was the final piece of evidence. The entire world was against him. Everything and everyone in it, apparently including mousy little alchemists. He glared balefully at all of them.

Until he met Hakkai's cool gaze, and the pendant in his hand seemed to grow inexplicably warmer.

"_How do you expect people to stay around you with such violent and rude habits?"_

Dammit all.

He gave up and accepted Gojyo's hand when the halfbreed reached out to pull him to his feet, and was also the first to shrug agreement at the suggestion of a poker game while they waited for Goku. When he thought no one else was looking, he slipped the pendant on underneath his robes.

Hakkai petted Jiipu and smiled to himself.

A short while later Rasetsunyo finally woke up, and introductions were made all round. Gojyo couldn't seem to get over the fact that Kougaiji's mom was a hottie, as he called her to her very surprised (and amused) face. Kougaiji bristled and had to be restrained from leaping up and throttling the halfbreed. He was suffering from a terrible case of guilt after all for not having been the one to rescue his beloved mother, and overcompensated for it by being annoying protective. Rasetsunyo, in the midst of having her pointy ears talked off by an ecstatic Lirin (a real mom wooooow!) merely favored her son with a gently reproving smile.

To the surprise of all, Rasetsunyo was not only an Empress but a bona fide card shark. The captain of her personal guards had taught her to play long ago, she confessed to her very shocked (and in Kougaiji's case, slightly scandalized) audience.

Gojyo declared war.

After a full hour of straight losing games (against Jien, Hakkai _and_ the Empress, he never had a chance, and he dared not cheat in front of his brother), the halfbreed was ready to kill something, and nearly did when a youkai in a bloody and ripped uniform (livery of the castle forces, actually) popped out of nowhere.

The youkai just barely managed to bring twin swords up in time to deflect the crescent blade. He knocked it away forcefully and demanded, with an indignant glare, "The hell was that for?!"

"Chen?" Kougaiji was on his feet, surprise and clear recognition written across his face.

"Oh, sorry," Gojyo said unsheepishly, retracting the chain of the shakujou. "Thought you were a zombie."

The youkai was not. Rather, he was Chen, one of the survivors of the units Gyokumen had taken from under Kougaiji's direct authority, but most of whom had remained loyal to the Prince. They were the ones who had traveled briefly with Rasetsunyo, Sanzo, Jien and Goku, and had been ordered to guard the exits to make sure Gyokumen didn't get away. Fortunately for them, however, they abandoned those posts when the last huge Minus Wave briefly divorced them from their sanity and sent them all running about like chickens with their heads cut off, and thus were no longer in the castle when it started falling down. Once outside they'd been immediately set upon by zombies (and there was still a raw horror in Chen's eyes as he reported the incident in a remarkably steady voice) and had made their way to a defensible high ground and held their position there.

"And then, suddenly, the zombies all just fell over and stopped moving."

"Oh," Kougaiji said absently, wondering how many other soldiers had survived (or hadn't) the ruin of the castle, "you'll have to thank Sanzo for that."

Chen cast a suspicious Look at the monk, knowing very well who and what Genyo Sanzo was. Sanzo returned the Look right back.

"We're waiting for my husband to die again," Rasetsunyo informed the young soldier bluntly, waving a hand in the vague direction of the epic battle still raging unchecked some distance away. "Why don't you bring your people on up here and watch the show?"

Jien, who knew Chen quite well actually (because there were times when one just needed to get out and have a drink or a gambling run with the boys, away from oh so elegant and refined Princes and polite females and rambunctious little children), grinned in delight that the other armsman had escaped with his life and his sanity intact. "Yeah, and then you can drag your sorry ass over so I can own it in our little poker tournament." He indicated the cards everyone, with the exception of Lirin (no gambling for brats), was holding.

"Deal," Chen said instantly, a vicious gleam suddenly alight in his eyes. Gojyo groaned silently. Never invite rounders or soldiers to a poker game, because the former were professionals and the latter as good as, and by trade even more bloodthirsty about everything they did.

The youkai soldier bowed deeply to the Empress and to Kougaiji before wheeling to dash off the way he'd come.

"You should've ordered him to search the castle wreckage and find the sutras," Sanzo bitched, flicking ash off the end his fifth cigarette. "They're all so eager to kiss your ass and follow orders anyway."

Kougaiji appeared to actually consider this. When Chen came back, followed by a bedraggled and exhausted bunch of his comrades, the Prince took him aside and asked him something. Chen looked startled for a moment, but shrugged and barked an order at one of his men (he'd been promoted to unofficial leader in the absence/death of everyone else in charge). The youkai soon returned carrying …a shovel.

Rasetsunyo's son handed it to Sanzo, his expression cultured blandness. "There you go. Unworthy youkai shouldn't be handling such items as divine scriptures anyway, right?"

Sanzo stared at the shovel, stared at the Prince, swore at him and then snatched it and stalked off, muttering something about goddamn ingrates and never agreeing to saving the fucking world ever ever again. He did manage to find the scriptures, though (his gun being as he suspected, probably melted and long gone), and fairly quickly, and having the Seiten Sutra in his possession after thirteen years or so of hunting for it finally mellowed out his temper a bit.

"Bleeding fuck, Sanzo, stop petting the damn thing. It's creepy."

Sanzo's only reply was to smack his winning hand down in front of the kappa and rejoice in Gojyo's furious, inarticulate spluttering.

Oh yes, life was good.

Now if only the monkey would hurry up and kill Gyumaoh.

There came a tremendous CRASH from behind them, shaking the ground and upsetting all their card piles. One dead god of destruction, right on cue.

Sanzo actually smiled.

-

_END Part Five_

OUTTAKES

(Scene: SANZO reflects on the fact that GOKU is no longer a child as the monkey clings to him)

GOKU: (mental dialogue) "_I still love you, you know, but I'm old enough to be on top now, right?"_

SANZO: ..... (shoots GOKU)

SANZO: I'll just deal with Gyumaoh myself. .

-

(Scene: SANZO leans down to kiss GOKU, and then removes the limiter)

SEITEN TAISEI: (promptly tears out the throat of the human with head so obligingly placed near his fangs)

SANZO: (dies)

-

(Scene: Zombies rush at SANZO, JIEN, and RASETSUNYO)

RASETSUNYO: (screaming ala Ash) Come and get it, cocksuckers! (revs chainsaw)

(cue splatterfest)

SANZO & JIEN: (look disturbed)

RASETSUNYO: Groovy.


	6. Ep 6 Return of the Pervy Hobbit Fanciers

Disclaimer: I own nothing except that which I own. You figure it out.

* * *

PART SIX

_Come Hell or High Water_

-

Jiroushin knocked warily next to the little hanging sign that read 'Goddess of Mercy's room: KEEP OUT.'

Someone inside yelped, cursed. Rustling noises ensued. Then came Kanzeon's voice, muffled and irate, "WHAT, dammit?!"

Very much hating his job, Jiroushin announced in a flat monotone that the battle was finished and Gyumaoh about to fall, and reminded his mistress also that Kanzeon had asked him to come tell hir when this occurred.

".....they're finished _already?"_ Even filtered through the door, the surprise coloring the bodhisattiva's voice was obvious.

"Uh, yes."

More cursing and rustling. Then the door crashed open (and Jiroushin leaped back just in time to avoid being slammed against the wall with it) and Kanzeon swept out, impeccably groomed somehow and looking not at all like someone who'd just been....

Jiroushin halted that thought before he threw up or got a nosebleed.

"They're way ahead of schedule," Kanzeon was muttering to hirself, summoning a lengthy scroll to hir hand and leaning in to examine it closely. The end trailed halfway across the room, following hir as se paced like a ridiculous train. "Way, _way_ ahead of schedule. The zombies were supposed to keep them occupied for at least another …oh, fuck it. Someone screwed up somewhere."

"Screwed what huh?" mumbled a very exhausting looking (and still slightly drunk, to be honest) ghost, dragging himself to the doorway and listing there in nothing but a sheet.

Kanzeon glared at him. "Have you been cheating?" se demanded.

The ghost blinked owlishly. "On you?"

Jiroushin suffered a sudden choking fit.

"No, you twit, I already know you're doing that. On the Design."

"Uh. No! Not on that. I don't think." He swayed a little, catching himself with one hand against the wall. A frown marred his forehead as he recited, apparently from memory, "No interference after the beginning of the Journey, unless first receiving your personal approval, so as not to mess up the Karmic Design and ruin all your careful planning. Failure to comply will be met summarily with Nasty Bad Things otherwise known as dire consequences."

"So glad you remember my exact wording. Now, when was your last official bout of meddling?"

"Homura," Jiroushin supplied sourly. He knew because he'd been in charge of the huge bitch pile of paperwork it had generated.

The ghost coughed. "Well actually there was that one time at Houtou Castle…"

Kanzeon waved him silent. "Already on record, and doesn't count. No direct interaction with Konzen's group." Se pursed her lips together and scanned another section of the scroll, quietly fuming. "This doesn't make sense. Even if it wasn't you, _something_ had to have altered the flow of events."

The ghost hiccupped into the sudden silence, then grinned stupidly as Kanzeon shot him an annoyed Look.

"We'll just have to stall them," the bodhisattiva announced, briskly rolling up the scrolling and shoving it at Jiroushin, who se'd force later to examine the thing line by line until the offending detail was discovered. "There's still paperwork and ceremonies and other such bullshit pending with the lifting of your sentence, not to mention all the red tape we're going to run into over Nataku."

Jiroushin and the ghost both stared. "You haven't started _any_ of that yet?" the ghost accused, suddenly sounding a lot less inebriated. "You've had nearly six hundred years!"

"You try running Heaven and Earth, asshole. See how much free time you have left over."

The ghost ignored hir acid tone, instead looking alarmingly enthused. "Can I really? Try running Heaven and Earth, I mean?"

"_NO,"_ said Jiroushin and Kanzeon together.

"Aw."

"Anyway," said Jiroushin, attempting to shift focus back to the point, "how exactly are we supposed to stall the Seiten Taisei?"

"Hm. I suppose ordering Konzen to take care of it is a little unfair. In that case….soldier!"

The ghost straightened up ridiculously and saluted, nearly poking himself in the eye doing so. "Yes ma'am sir! Wait, I quit the army."

"Then consider this your official reinstatement. Get yourself dressed, detoxed, and down to Earth to handle the hell monkey until I've got things in order. Keep him from killing anything."

"Cripes, again?"

The Merciful Goddess glared. "Unless you'd rather spend another millennia sealed at the bottom of a river."

"Uh, no, ma'am sir. Off to Earth I go." The ghost paused, uncertain. "Am I allowed to explain anything while I'm down there?"

"No, child," Kanzeon said with remarkable gentleness, answering the question he wasn't asking aloud. "Not yet. They don't remember you anyway, so they won't understand."

"Ah."

"And take Homura's sword with you. The Seiten Taisei will gnaw through that flimsy piece of earthly metal you call a blade in no time."

The ghost stilled utterly in the process of hunting for his boots, golden eyes gone haunted and completely sober as he met Kanzeon's gaze.

"I will not bear that weapon," he said softly, implacably. "I am no longer Heaven's executioner."

Kanzeon eyed him keenly. "Or Heaven's justice?"

"I was never Heaven's justice. I was young and stupid and trying to change an unchangeable world. I've since learned better."

"Hmph. I think you just gave up."

He gave hir an ironic bow. "I regret not being up to the task, as your nephew and the others proved to be after I left, but I'm afraid the corruption here runs too deep for it to ever be cut completely free. Even by the sword of a toushin taishi." His tone grew faintly bitter. "My honorable father would be most disappointed in my lack of success, I am sure."

Se gave him a stern glance. "Or perhaps you just found something better to devote yourself to."

The ghost looked briefly startled, then guilty. "Devil's advocate," he accused, stung.

"You were wallowing. I don't associate with people who indulge in self pity over their own past choices," se informed him with a superior expression.

"Fine, whatever." He settled the gray traveller's cloak over his shoulders. "I'll go say hi to the monkey, then. You guys want coffee or something while I'm down there?"

"Get out, you ingrate," Kanzeon ordered.

He saluted (the bastard), and was gone.

Jiroushin stole a glance at his mistress. "Was that really a good idea?"

"Of course not. That's why I did it."

"But, but he'll open his mouth and say something and…"

"..and give me some entertaining chaos to watch while you sort out the problem," Kanzeon finished for him, heading out to the lotus pond. "Grab me some of that leftover popcorn, would you? It's on the table next to the bed."

Jiroushin looked decidedly nauseous at the thought, and then annoyed at the request. "I was not trained as a butler, you know," he huffed, eyeing the door to the bodhisattiva's Dreaded Bedroom/Lair of Doom warily.

Kanzeon gave him a nasty, nasty smile. "Don't worry, you're a natural. Now fetch, boy, fetch."

-

_Five Hours (and Two Popcorn Buckets) Later_

"I found the problem," Jiroushin announced wearily, pushing up his reading spectacles.

Kanzeon lifted a brow over her tea 'n popcorn. "Oh?"

"This. Right here. 'Use of magical device to negate youkai zombies: one Pagan Necklace Charm……thing.' Konzen's current reincarnation was able to capture and seal the loose souls with it."

"I don't recall putting any swishy twink necklaces at his disposal. Where the rolling fuck did my nephew get ahold of something like that?"

Jiroushin scanned back. "It was at the scene, apparently. Stolen by …um, stolen by Gyokumen's people nearly five weeks ago, brought to Houtou Castle and used to successfully revive Gyumaoh."

"Stolen from whom?"

Jiroushin scanned back more. "One pagan by the name of Hazel Glosse. Supposed to have been shot dead quite a while ago, but for some reason he keeps showing up in the entries....oh, here, there's an additional notation concerning him, explaining that...."

"…..you know what, just give it to me, I'll find the answers faster reading it myself." Kanzeon snatched the scroll away, and Jiroushin happily let hir have the damn thing.

Kanzeon scanned. Kanzeon scanned more. Kanzeon nearly spit out hir tea when se found the aforementioned notation.

"Since when is my nephew in love?!"

-

_Meanwhile_

"So, your Highnessness, what will you be doing with your crumbled kingdom now?" asked Gojyo of a certain youkai prince, eyeing the wrecked remains of Houtou Castle. No one seemed to be making any particular effort to put out the fires.

"Technically my mother is still Empress. I was never formally inaugurated to the throne," Kougaiji answered. He was watching the Seiten Taisei continue to smack Gyumaoh around. Gojyo had already made several lewd observations about the stamina of the saru, aimed in the direction of Sanzo, who twitched dangerously and leveled the halfbreed with his best Eat Shit and Die glare.

The crash from earlier had been a false alarm. Gyumaoh had merely tripped, not fallen down dead.

Unfortunately.

Gojyo persisted. "Yeah, but doesn't authority default to you, as the heir, if the Emperor dies?"

Kougaiji shrugged.

"You seem to be taking the succession rather casually," Hakkai noted.

"I'm of the opinion that people should be happy with their rulers. I've just spent the last five years parading around as a spokesperson for Gyokumen Kyushu, telling everyone to follow her psychotic plans. Do you honestly think anyone is going to want to see me in power?"

Hakkai and Gojyo both had to admit that was a valid point. "Don't worry, Red Boy," drawled the halfbreed, throwing an arm over Kougaiji's shoulder. "We still love you, even if your subjects want you drawn and quartered for the shitty PR work."

Kougaiji was looking at the offending limb draped over him like it was a poisonous snake. Gojyo found himself leering, just a tad. Pretty piece of ass indeed, especially up close.

With identical long suffering/irritated expressions, Jien and Hakkai moved to separate them, one dragging back a slightly scandalized Prince and the other a protesting flirt. "Only sluts hit on strange youkai, Gojyo," Jien informed his half brother, conspicuously placing himself between Kougaiji and Gojyo's infamous wandering hands.

"He's not a strange youkai," Gojyo said indignantly, choosing to ignore Hakkai's Vaguely Ominous Polite Smile of Doom that was advising him to drop the subject. "I've known him plenty long enough to count as an acquaintance, and it's perfectly acceptable in social situations to hit on acquantances!"

Jien got a squinty sort of look around the eyes that Gojyo recognized from his youth as the Drop It Now Little Boy Or I'll Beat You Like the Redheaded Stepchild You Are silent vocalization. Between Hakkai and Sanzo, Gojyo was getting really good at this translating wordless communication thing.

"Geez, fine, chill," he muttered sulkily, palming a feel of Hakkai's pretty ass instead to make himself feel better. The healer would make him pay for it later, but later was later and not now. "I'm sure the gods will smite me for my impudence, divine retribution for disrespecting my elders, yadda yadda and all that. Why don't you just put up a damn 'No Trespassing' sign on your property, then, if you're going to freak out over such minor misunderstandings?"

"Property?" Kougaiji echoed only slightly ominously, darting a Look at Dokugakuji, who was in the process of turning very, very red.

_Score for the cockroach,_ Gojyo thought, mentally tallying up the number of bets he'd just won. He _knew_ there was something swishy about the Prince.

Well, good for his brother or something. Kougaiji was certainly easy on the eyes and despite all that pesky nobility and honor crap, probably a really hot lay. And there was always something to be said for sleeping one's way into a royal (read: rich) family….

The halfbreed couldn't help himself. "So, when Red Boy there takes the throne, will that make you Empress, nii-san?"

Ooh, that was the This Close To Losing It Look. He was definitely going to regret this in the morning when he woke up to broken bones.

The impending brawl between siblings was interrupted by the sudden inconvenience of having a body fall out of the sky and flatten Gojyo.

Everyone stared.

After a moment, Jien asked in shocked awe if that counted as divine retribution.

Hakkai added somewhat faintly that the most common example was the use of thunderbolts.

Kougaiji warily scanned the clear sky above them all. "Maybe they ran out," he said.

Sanzo was not smirking. He wasn't.

"Um, Gojyo…" Hakkai started forward, but the redhead was already stirring and groaned, opening his eyes to meet a pair of equally dazed bright gold ones.

"Note to self," the newcomer mumbled fuzzily, "next time aim for haystack or pillow factory." He blinked and tried to focus on the face not an inch from his. "Oh, hi, General."

"Hi yourself, crackhead. You always this direct about things, or were you even going to buy me a drink first?"

"Sorry about the landing…." The stranger's eyes suddenly widened and he yelped, rolling with Gojyo to the side as a massive piece of steel, following its master in his descent from Tenkai, abruptly bit into the earth where they'd both just been and stuck there, swaying gently.

Gojyo's eyes were a bit wild as he took in the sight of the quivering Buster Sword, a weapon taller than the damn monk was and with a foot wide blade. That might have done some major damage. "Um. That yours?"

The stranger was just as white faced. "Yes, but I'm considering disowning it now."

The distinct sound of someone clearing his throat snagged both their attention, and they looked up (and paled further) to see a very, very calm Hakkai very very calmly holding a chi ball between his hands. Gojyo realized he was still clutching the new guy and they were tangled together quite compromisingly. The new guy emitted a squeak and a babble of strung together words that sounded something like "OhbloodyfuckMarshalIcanexplainthisit'snotwhatitlookslike--" before Hakkai raised a single brow very calmly, and the man shut up as though a gag had been shoved in his mouth.

"Would you mind, sir," and Gojyo had never gotten chills from such a polite tone of voice before, "kindly removing yourself from my friend and telling us who you are?"

Hakkai was really close to losing it. Hakkai had just put up with a very trying day dealing with Sanzo and gunshot victims and bodhisattivas and zombies and he really. didn't. need. strange men crawling all over Gojyo to boot and Gojyo not making much effort to halt it.

The newcomer gulped and scrambled gracelessly to comply. One did not argue with Tenpou Gensui, in any incarnation, when the man took that particular tone. He backed off slowly, eyeing the chi ball (not that it would do him much harm, in this form) until the Death Comes Swiftly look in Hakkai's eyes lessened a bit. He liked Tenpou, really he did, but the guy could be _such_ a psycho over the people he chose to love, including that poor doomed girl and Kenren and sometimes even Konzen. Gojyo. Kouryuu. Sanzo. Whatever their names were now.

Konzen-Kouryuu-Genjyo was staring suspiciously. The skydiving-without-benefit-of-a-parachute prone bastard looked human enough, slender and built like a martial artist, long chestnut hair braided into a tail (with the very tip dyed white? What the fuck?), clean cut features and wearing some sort of silly half armor so only one shoulder bore a metal plate. The gold eyes smacked of shiki, but the aura was wrong. _Itan_, then, like Homura and Goku. The weird, weird, triple petal marking on the forehead smacked of something Sanzo couldn't quite remember but was sure he didn't trust. And the dangly earrings looked extremely familiar….

"Um. Hi," said the _itan_, trying not to edge back further from Hakkai's still present chi ball. "This is going to sound very odd, but is Gyumaoh dead yet?"

Gojyo, having quickly scuttled to the least dangerous area, namely behind Hakkai, blinked. Gestured vaguely off in the distance. "What does it look like to you?"

"Oh good." The man looked relieved. "I've still got some time. Now then…"

"Who the hell are you?" Sanzo interrupted bluntly.

"Right, introductions. I'm.."

"Five hundred years late, you bastard," snarled Rasetsunyo, shoving her way past Sanzo and Hakkai to glare. Her earrings chimed with the lift of her head, and the stranger's matching ones echoed softly.

"Erk. Hi honey."

There was fire swirling around the edges of Rasetsunyo's fingers.

The man offered weakly, "Sorry I'm late?"

The furious Empress pounced.

-

Chen, Jien and Gojyo were back to playing poker, figuring the screeching was so loud they could eavesdrop just fine and catch the important bits. Everyone else was watching (and occasionally dodging) the (literal) fireworks.

"_You. Insufferable. Prick!! _How dare you disappear when Heaven declared war on us!!" Rasetsunyo screamed, hurling a fireball at the stranger, who was forced to block it with his massive sword. He peeked out from behind the smoking blade.

"It wasn't like I left you two alone on purpose!" he yelled back, somewhat singed. "They sealed me at the bottom of a river for all eternity!"

"You seem perfectly fine and capable of moving around now!" Another pyrokinetic attack.

"I agreed to serve Kanzeon for eternity instead if se would let me out! I was trying to get back to you!"

"_Service_ Kanzeon, you mean, you slut!"

"Yeah, well, that too…"

"AAARGH!!"

Yaone edged over to her Prince. "Kougaiji-sama, who is that person?"

The redheaded youkai shook his head, as bewildered as everyone else. "I have no idea."

"He's got your earrings," Hakkai remarked with some astonishment. "…and I would say he knows your mother."

"Gee," Sanzo drawled with the highest degree of sarcasm he could muster. Everyone ducked an incoming fireball, which exploded rather spectacularly on impact with the ground and showered everyone in cinders instead. This was ridiculous, the monk decided, shaking ash out of his hair. Absofuckinglutely ridiculous.

"That's it. Hakkai, go break it up before they set anything else on fire."

Hakkai gave him a You Must Be Joking look. "Ahaha. I think the Empress might object to any interference."

Kougaiji wouldn't do it either, mama's boy that he was. Seething about having to do everything himself, Sanzo began the chant for The Double Kyoumon Bitchslap of Doom.

Yaone put a hand to her mouth and pointed with the other off to the side. "Look! I think Gyumaoh is finally going down!"

"He's WHAT?!" yelped the stranger, jerking his head in the direction of the Other Epic Battle currently raging. He paled. He took off running full speed towards it.

"I'm not finished with you! Get back here and die like a man!!" Rasetsunyo screamed after him. His reply floated back.

"Just a minute, dear--!"

Sanzo eyed Yaone with new respect. That had been smooth.

"Now then," Yaone said briskly, "we get some questions answered." She approached the still fuming Empress with a certain understandable caution. "Lady Rasetsunyo….?"

"Men," Rasetsunyo muttered as though the word was an epithet. She turned her irritated glance on the whole group of males currently in the area, and spoke with the self righteous indignation of a scorned woman to both Lirin and Yaone. "Men are useless, pathetic creatures. Never get involved with them."

Lirin nodded, wide eyed. Yaone smiled blankly, trying very hard not to laugh at her Prince's sudden stricken look. "Lady, can you tell us who that man is?"

"Unfortunately." Rasetsunyo sniffed. "His name is Ko Shuyin. Heretic, and former War Prince of Heaven."

Sanzo was drawing a blank in his memorized list of important historical deities. "Before Homura?"

"Before Nataku. Who is Homura?"

"Long story.

"Ah."

Kougaiji wanted to know how his mother knew a former toushin taishi.

"_That's_ the long story. His father was a soldier from the Heavenly army, and deserted after he fell in love and had a child with a mortal woman. He was murdered for it when they were discovered, and the woman and all her bloodline cursed, and Shuyin taken back to Heaven for trial. Instead of executing him, they made him toushin taishi." She tossed a glare in the direction the man in question had disappeared. "He quickly won the title of worst War Prince ever employed, being spectacularly unreliable and rebellious, so I don't know how he managed to keep the post for several hundred years. Kept running off to Earth to look after the extended mortal family he'd left behind. That was how I met him, the first time. I was born as one of the last three children of the line."

Silence.

"But….aren't you a youkai?" It was the first inane thing that popped out of Sanzo's mouth.

Rasetsunyo fussed with her sleeves. "One of his relatives accidentally did that blood of a thousand youkai thing."

"Murderer?" That from Hakkai, looking pale.

"Surgeon, actually, if you can believe it."

"Oh."

At that point a series of crashes heralded the re-appearance of one former War Prince, an unconscious and re-crowned Son Goku tossed over his shoulder and a blood covered Gyumaoh hot on his heels.

"Rasetsu, dearest, would you please stop explaining things?" Shuyin panted as he came up to them. "They aren't supposed to know about any of that, Heaven's orders."

"You have a responsibility to tell them the truth!" Rasetsunyo flared.

"I most certainly do _not_ ….oh hell." Gyumaoh was upon them.

"Here, take your pet, nikkou." Shuyin handed Goku off to Sanzo, who stiffened at the nickname (now why did that sound so familiar?). A roar split the air, and everyone except Shuyin abruptly scattered as Gyumaoh, sword raised overhead, brought it crashing down in a vast overhand blow.

There came the clarion sound of steel against steel, and a brilliant shower of sparks poured out over the ground. Those who'd expected to be flattened in the next few seconds opened their eyes at the noise and general lack of pancake state, and looked up to incredulously behold Gyumaoh, straining to complete the strike, with his weapon caught and _stopped_ by Shuyin's. The Buster Sword was held easily above the man's head with one of his hands around the hilt and the other on the flat of the blade.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you that it's impolite to interrupt someone else's conversation?" Shuyin queried, his earrings chiming softly. For all the demon king's efforts, Gyumaoh couldn't seem to move the press even a millimeter further. A scary, absent sort of smile appeared on the former War Prince's face (reminding everyone irresistibly of Homura, out of those who had met Lord Flame) as he paused for an answer and, upon receiving none, continued conversationally, "No? How careless of her."

Everyone prudently edged away. They'd all been around long enough to recognize Shit About To Go Down and knew they wanted to be well out of the line of fire when it did.

Gyumaoh roared in frustration. Shuyin didn't appear to notice. If anything, the nonchalance of the man's tone only increased when he spoke again. "Well, I suppose the learning process must begin somewhere." Then the Buster Sword was suddenly not underneath Gyumaoh's anymore to hold it back, and the towering youkai stumbled clumsily forward.

"Now siddown." And Shuyin knocked the demon king flat on his back with roaring of summoned energy, blueblack where Homura's sword dragon had been bright crimson. The earth shook as the youkai impacted, and the enormous dust cloud thrown up blotted out the sun.

Gyumaoh did not get back up.

A convenient gust of wind swirled the choking dust out of Shuyin's path as though he'd bid it part. There was an uncharacteristically sober expression on his face as he slid the Buster Sword home into its sheath on his back, and for the first time, standing there with braid, sash, and cloak flagged in the stiff breeze, the chestnut haired man actually looked the part of Divine Wrath of Heaven.

Everyone appeared suitably impressed except for Goku, who was unconscious in Sanzo's arms, and Rasetsunyo, who looked merely disgruntled and muttered, "Showoff."

Shuyin ruined the entire illusion by grinning cheesily at her.

"There," he said briskly, brushing his hands together. "Ugly shouldn't be up for another two hours or thereabouts. Maybe less. He's all juiced up from the loose souls flying around. Good luck trying to damage him enough to get it past simple unconsciousness."

So that was why even the Seiten Taisei hadn't been able to fell the beast yet. Sanzo eyed the unconscious goliath. "Any particular reason you're leaving the honors to us, instead of finishing him off yourself since you're obviously capable?"

"Oh believe me, I'd love to, but I'm not allowed," Shuyin answered cheerily. "It's not my place to be the one that kills him. Nor," and he glanced at Rasetsunyo, sneaking up on her fallen husband with a fireball only partially hidden behind her back, "is it the place of anyone else here, save the Seiten Taisei. Put it away, Rasetsu."

She did so, grumbling sulkily.

Kougaiji took a step forward, fists clenched and grimly ready to challenge anyone who dared order his lady mother around, even if that someone in question was a god or…whatever. At the approach Shuyin looked at him in some surprise, and then in out and out shock. He shot a stricken glance at Rasetsunyo.

Her tone in response was venomously honeyed. "It's been over five hundred years. He grew up. Not that you were ever around to notice."

"I told you that wasn't my fault!"

"Oh, of course. The untamable Shuyin, breaker of every rule laid down by Heaven, followed orders only when it came to someone commanding you to throw your own family to the wolves."

Kougaiji looked absolutely confused, gaze going back and forth between _itan_ and Empress.

Sick of all the crypticism, Sanzo demanded to know just what the fuck was going on.

"Don't you dare," Shuyin grated, looking hard at the youkai woman who wore a suspiciously pleasant expression. Rasetsunyo ignored him, brushing back a strand of scarlet hair.

"Kougaiji, darling, I'd like you to meet your father."

Jaws dropped all around. Kougaiji froze. One could almost see his poor abused brain trying and failing to process the utter illogic of that statement. "Um," he said intelligently, looking quite like he'd been hit over the head with a board. "Um, what?"

Shuyin sighed and stared accusingly at Rasetsunyo. "Now you've done it."

She smiled sweetly.

-

_(Bonus Side Quest: Revelation Backstory! Skip if you'd rather get back to the relevant part of the plot kthx.)_

There was really no sense in refusing to give further explanation, since Rasetsunyo had already dropped the bomb. The rest of the story was as complicated as the beginning had been. Shuyin's 'looking after' his family included allowing them to summon divine aid (namely himself) as a last resort in emergencies. A fifteen year old Rasetsunyo had done this after being stood up by a date.

("What?" she demanded defensively when everyone looked at her. "I was fifteen. I thought it qualified as an emergency at the time.")

Thus had begun the only long running relationship Shuyin had maintained with any of his relatives since the time when he'd had a nuclear family, as for the most part he tried to stay out of direct contact for fear of harm coming to them. He had many enemies in Heaven, and not all of them were above taking out their displeasure on mortal targets when the toushin taishi himself was untouchable. Rasetsunyo however, unimpressed by her 'savior' but wholly impressed with (and amused by) his speed and consistency in appearing at her side whenever she used the summon charm, refused to leave him alone until he finally put her on magical block.

("It was terrible. I couldn't even get a full night's sleep without her calling at 3 am saying she needed an escort home from some party because she was too drunk to remember the way in the dark, or that she'd locked herself out of the house again or even that she didn't want to get up and feed the cat so could I please do it instead." Shuyin sighed morosely, remembering. Kougaiji was staring at his mother in vague horror, having never heard any of these stories of misspent youth.)

And then Gyumaoh, after a long and very, very bloody war, had won possession of and united under an iron fist a kingdom long torn by civil strife. When such a powerful figure asked for the hand of a woman reknowned for her beauty and intelligence, Rasetsunyo could find no reason to disagree. It was a joyless and loveless match, but accompanied by the golden opportunity to, as Empress, rebuild her shattered land and people. Which she devoted herself to passionately.

("I ran that kingdom more than my so-called husband did. He spent all of time off fighting or doing whatever there was to be done away from the castle. Lazy good for nothing barbarian, neglecting administration," she growled, tossing her head. Everyone present had to wonder if Gyumaoh had kept away from the castle to avoid bureaucratic duties or rather to avoid his obviously strong willed and difficult to manage wife.)

Then, disaster. Rasetsunyo received news that her two cousins had died, leaving her alone in the world save for those of her relatives only related through marriage and not by genetics. The curse that had been laid on her blood was designed to slowly strangle the line by making it exceedingly difficult for any children to be born, as well as shortening the lives of the carriers and bringing them to tragic ends. Shuyin had done what he could to counteract its effects, but he couldn't be everywhere at once. As the last of the bloodline, the curse became concentrated fully and Rasetsunyo was faced with the prospect of magically enforced barrenness.

(She paused. They waited. She glared. "As _Empress_, I was obligated to give my lord an heir to succeed the throne. Succession squabbles start wars." All the males went "Ohhhh," now getting why it was such a big deal.)

This particular succession squabble seemed poised to start up the nasty civil war that Gyumaoh had ended with his ascension to power, as none of the factions had ever forgiven his victory and looked always for the first opportunity to bring him down. Faced with watching a repeat of the slaughter, Rasetsunyo appealed to Shuyin, who in turn appealed to the one being he trusted in Heaven. Ko Hiten, Shuyin's father, had been murdered by a consortium of high ranking military officers (none of whom were any longer among the living, thanks to the son's wrath), leaving Shuyin with a fierce hatred of all things corrupt in the military (read: the entire damn thing) and an equally fierce resentment of the Jade Emperor (head of said corrupt military) and his bureaucrat dogs who had allowed the crime to both occur and go unpunished. So for everything except his official marching orders, Shuyin went instead to Kanzeon Bosatsu, as se had been one of the few figures in a Heaven full of divine sinners that the unlucky Hiten had mentioned as being trustworthy (the others were Goujuun, Dragon King of the Western Sea, and his brothers). Tentei eventually found it easier to let Kanzeon handle the difficult War Prince, which was inconvenient for him but not nearly as inconvenient as losing the services of the strongest toushin taishi they'd had for a millennia.

(Gojyo inserted a question here, directed at Rasetsunyo. "I thought you said he was the worse War Prince ever employed." Shuyin spluttered indignantly and Rasetsunyo, ignoring him, answered the halfbreed, "He was the worst in terms of following orders and maintaining an obedient attitude. Lack of skill wasn't the issue. I suppose he was competent, or something." Shuyin fumed and grumbled, "….no need to lay it on thick with the praise there, dearheart. You'll make me blush." Rasetsunyo merely gave him a disdainful Look.)

Except Kanzeon had no solutions this time, only a dangerous tidbit of information. Heaven would almost certainly mobilize to put down another civil war in volatile Tenjiku, and had been eying the arrogant and powerful Gyumaoh as a candidate for subjugation for some time now. All they needed was the excuse. If Shuyin didn't want to be ordered to march on Houtou Castle, he had better find a way to get around the curse. Moreover, a son of Rasetsunyo's could be their best hope for a lasting peace in the West, negating succession disputes and trained by his mother to rule justly when Gyumaoh the dictator finally kicked it. Without much other choice, Shuyin took it upon himself to break a curse sanctioned by the gods, giving Rasetsunyo her heir, but at the same time making himself now eligible for dismissal and imprisonment/execution as a criminal. Before this could happen, Shuyin threw his resignation as toushin taishi (something Not Done and with Dire Ramifications, as the service of the toushin taishi was lifelong) in the Jade Emperor's face and vanished. This was why there was no mention on him in ecclesiastical history, as Tentei in a rage had ordered all records of Shuyin's rebellious existence erased.

(Silence. Dokugakuji said it first for all of them, expression horrified/scandalized. "You _slept _with your own….own…." "Great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandaughter of my youngest half brother?" Shuyin supplied, eyes narrowing. "Yeah. I did. Get over it. You're the last person who should be pointing fingers, Sha Jien." Doku erked and wisely shut up.)

The next decade or so Shuyin spent on the run, alternating between hiding out from Heavenly pursuers and violently putting down any arguments the warring factions of Tenjiku chose to bring up when an heir miraculously appeared after years of Gyumaoh's apparent impotence/Rasetsunyo's apparent barrenness. He gave the new mother a firmly maintained peace of the realm to raise her son in, and only after things had reluctantly settled did he return to her. A certain 'Ko-san', first name unknown, was hired as captain of the Empress' guard and after proving himself without equal in battle, personally undertook the heir's combat training.

(Kougaiji was staring now at the _itan._ "I don't remember any of that." Shuyin sighed and explained that he'd been under a glamour at the time and looked like a youkai. "No," Kougaiji repeated blankly, "I don't mean I don't remember seeing you. I mean I don't remember _any_ of that. I had my own combat instructor when I was that young?" Shuyin facepalmed, muttering something about wasted effort and alcoholic mothers producing brain damaged children. Rasetsunyo patted her son's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, darling. He's rather forgettable." She caught Shuyin's eye and retorted, "Especially when it comes to matters involving physical activity.")

The eerily peaceful domesticity fell through quickly, however, once Kougaiji was older, as Gyumaoh for some inexplicable reason developed a taste for human flesh and tendency towards tyrannical behavior. The conflicts that Shuyin and Rasetsunyo had worked tirelessly to keep lids on reared once more, ignited, and spread uncontrollably like the most volatile of oil based wildfires. (All these things might have made more sense if they'd known the state of Heaven at the time, where a petty bureaucrat named Litouten, who had laid the groundworks for sweeping war and general Hell on Earth in order to push his 'son,' Nataku and therefore himself into power, offered Tentei the services of another heretic to deal with the chaos if the Jade Emperor would but name the boy toushin taishi. Tentei did. Nataku's existence of misery as a killing puppet began. Thus were set into motion events which would culminate in the deaths of three rebel gods and one dragon, and the imprisonment of one Seiten Tasei Son Goku.) Shuyin didn't tell the Sanzo-ikkou any of that, and Rasetsunyo didn't know about it, so she couldn't. Kanzeon's orders on keeping that hidden were very explicit.

(Sanzo knew what was coming. Hakkai did too, both of them being historically knowledgeable, and Chen and the Kougaiji-tachi had all heard the story in some version or another. "What did you..." Hakkai began, and halted before saying anything else. Obviously Shuyin hadn't been able to keep the attack from occurring. Obviously Kougaiji and Rasetsunyo had both been sealed. Had he fought Nataku, and lost?)

("I never saw him," Shuyin admitted. "I ..uh. I got there too late to do anything." He shifted his weight uncomfortably.)

(Rasetsunyo eyed the father of her child and asked him point blank if he was lying.)

(".....yes." He held up his hands in entreaty, forestalling her anger. "Let it go, alright? I can't tell you anything more. Stuff ..happened. I tried, believe me I tried, but everything ...everything fell apart. It wasn't the ending I wanted for you two.")

("I should hope not," Kougaiji muttered, and Shuyin flinched, looking guilty. He deserved that, he supposed.)

("I did...a stupid thing," the ex-toushin taishi said finally. "A very stupid thing. But it was the only option left to me, and that's all I can say in my defense. There was no other way." He shut up, obviously not going to tell any more of the story.)

("Fine then. You weren't around when we needed you, and things turned out the way they did. What have you been doing for five hundred years since then?" Rasetsunyo asked, unsatisfied with the evasion. Shuyin's smile turned bitterly painful, and he looked up to meet a cool violet gaze before answering.)

("Drowning.")

_fear of deep water, nikkou_

For some inexplicable reason the image of a black sea came to mind, and a chill ran shuddering down Sanzo's back.

-

_END Part Six_

-

OUTTAKES

(Scene: KANZEON bossing JIROUSHIN around)

JIROUSHIN: Do I fucking look like Alfred the butler?

-

(Scene: JIROUSHIN and KANZEON pour over the Magic Scroll (Log) of Past Events)

JIROUSHIN: I found the problem.

KANZEON: Oh?

JIROUSHIN: This. Right here. 'Use of magical twink device to negate zombies.'

KANZEON: .....damn Key of the Twilight. AURA! QUIT DROPPING YOUR STUPID TRINKETS IN OTHER REALITIES!

AURA: (from somewhere far away) Not my fault! My floaty robe/dress thing doesn't have pockets!

-

(Scene: HAKKAI, GOJYO, and KOUGAIJI discuss the succession)

HAKKAI: You seem to be taking all this rather casually.

KOUGAIJI: I just spent the last five years parading around as spokesperson for Gyokumen Kyushu, telling people to follow her psychotic plans. Do you honestly think anyone is going to want to see me in power?

GOJYO: Better you than Bush.

-

(Scene: A BODY falls out of the clear sky and flattens GOJYO)

EVERYONE: (stare)

SANZO: .....didn't that happen in Con Air?

HAKKAI: ..and in Dogma.

GOJYO: (smushed) Cancel that woman's goddamned cable. No more movie scene cameos.

-

(Scene: SHUYIN and GOJYO narrowly avoid impalement by the Buster Sword)

CLOUD: (from Highwind overhead) Sorry, sorry, my bad! It slipped out of my hand!

-

(Scene: RASETSUNYO fights with SHUYIN)

SHUYIN: It wasn't like I left you two alone on purpose!

RASETSUNYO: Tell it to the judge. You owe me five hundred fucking years of child support.

-

(Scene: KOUGAIJI finds out about his heritage)

SHUYIN: (can't resist) Luuuuuuke, I am your father...

KOU: ......you slept with this retard?

RASETSUNYO: (pointed look at Gyuu-zilla) ..and my other options were...what?

KOU: ...um. Point.


	7. Ep 7: For What You Dream Of

Part Seven

Revelations had a funny effect on people. After all the shocks and trauma of this day, the utterly staggering information that his father was not his father and some other guy he didn't even know was his father, there was only one coherent thing running through Kougaiji's head.

_At least I'll keep my looks when I'm old,_ he thought somewhat inanely, as Gyumaoh was one fugly sonuvabitch in his increasing age and Shuyin still looked bishie enough to be Kou's senior by a score of years instead of centuries.

Lirin was freaking out that her brother wasn't her brother until Dokugakuji pointed out that Rasetsunyo wasn't her mother either, and it hadn't stopped Lirin from hanging all over her and acting like she was.

"It's no different," he told her. "The people you love are your family, no matter the blood connections or lack of them."

She considered this.

"Then...then I won't call _her_ mom anymore," Lirin announced after a moment, a scarily solemn expression on her face. "Because she doesn't love me, so she can't be family."

No one had to ask who the 'her' in question was. No one had actually thought to inform Lirin of Gyokumen Kyushu's death, although it was pretty obvious from the ravaged remains of the castle that not a whole lot had survived.

The youkai girl looked over at the fallen Gyumaoh. "An' I wasn't even born until after he was asleep, so he can't love me." She bit her lip. "He doesn't even know me. So….so he can't be my father."

Concerned and a bit guilty, Kougaiji went to her and knelt down, shaking off his own familial discomforts. He remembered Gyumaoh enough from before the sealing to not mourn his passing. He hadn't even thought of what he was supposed to tell Lirin about the death of both her parents. "Lirin…."

Lirin let him gather her close but did not respond in kind right away. Instead, she reached out slowly to touch the markings on his cheek that mirrored hers, as if she'd never seen them before. "It's okay," she whispered, and again, stronger, when Kougaiji pulled back to look at her. She smiled, and then threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. Her words came out muffled but still audible. "It's okay, nii-chan. Goku-chan doesn't have a mother or a father either, but he has a family, and so do I. So it's okay."

'Goku-chan' might have had a fit about being called so, and by a girl no less. Sanzo choked on his unconscious behalf. Since when did Goku rate a 'chan' from little...

...okay, so Lirin wasn't that much of a little girl. Granted, she often acted more immature than her real age, but growing up in the court of Gyokumen Kyushu, who could blame her for hanging on with tooth and nail to the innocence of childhood? Forced maturity did no favors for the state of one's heart. Look what it had done to Sanzo.

Shuyin cocked his head to one side as if listening to something. He turned, and dropped into a kneeling position before a dancing mote of light that expanded into everyone's favorite bodhisattiva.

"Well well," se said, surveying the handiwork of hir servants, i.e. the burning castle and Gyumaoh laid out senseless on the ground. "Not too shabby, for a bunch of deviants. I'd congratulate you people if I weren't so busy trying to figure out how to fix the mess you've caused."

Sanzo's eyes narrowed. "We stopped the experiments to revive Gyumaoh. The Minus Wave is gone. What the fuck are you talking about, the mess we caused?"

"You've thrown everything off again!" se snapped, jabbing a finger in his direction. "Seven hundred years it took to balance the mistakes of the past. Seven. Hundred. Years. This was supposed to be the last piece to fall into place and return karma to equilibrium, but noooooo, you morons had to take shortcuts. Had to find a way out of the pattern. Had to..." se stopped.

Shuyin was snickering from his place on the ground. Kanzeon reached down to grab the convenient braid and painfully hauled the man to his feet by it. "Something funny?"

He smiled sunnily despite the pain from his scalp. "Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and karma..."

"You're fired." Se shoved him away, noting with some disgust that the shit eating grin on his face had only gotten wider. "The Design has changed. But it will run its course without your meddling, from now on."

The _itan_ saluted, still grinning. "I can live with that." His smile suddenly faded a bit, and he looked at hir in faint trepidation. "Um. Can't I?"

"We'll see." Se turned her attention back to Sanzo and eyed the unconscious boy in the monk's arms. "How close is he to waking up?"

"Try another day or so."

Kanzeon glared at Shuyin. "Can't you do anything right?"

"What else was I supposed to do with him, if not restore his limiter?" Shuyin demanded defensively. "Sit on him until you showed up?"

Se chose not to dignify that with a reply. Mostly because at that moment, a shudder rippled through Gyumaoh, and the demon king came roaring back to consciousness with all the fury of a hurricane.

"Back off, all of you," Kanzeon commanded. They did without argument, except for Shuyin, who was eyeing Gyumaoh and grimly sliding the Buster Sword free once more, and Sanzo, who se gestured to come closer. "Bring him to me."

Sanzo did so warily. He didn't trust Kanzeon. He really didn't trust Kanzeon when it came to Goku. For all he knew, se'd been the bitch who'd sealed the monkey in the first place and made him Sanzo's problem five hundred years later.

The golden coronet melted away at Kanzeon's touch. The Seiten Taisei twitched in his sleep, and to his credit Sanzo did no more than pale just a bit over the Destroyer still held fast in his arms.

"This is not your last trial, nor your greatest. But you have come this far," the bodhisattiva said softly. "Repay now your debt and regain that which you have lost, Great Sage Equal to Heaven."

_"Wake."_

Gold slitted eyes opened, focused.

And the Seiten Taisei surged up from Sanzo's hold, shoving the priest backwards in his haste to attack his closest target, the 'woman' standing before him.

With a bored expression, Kanzeon let him get close enough to kiss before kneeing him in the balls. Down went the hell monkey. All males present winced in sympathy.

"That way, retard." Se grabbed him by the back of the neck, ignoring his yowls, and pitched him in the general direction of Gyumaoh. The Seiten Taisei regained his feet instantly and hissed like a wet cat at Kanzeon.

Gyumaoh conveniently expedited things by choosing that moment to try and smash the Destroyer with his sword. For whatever reason the youkai king had some sort of grudge against Goku, or what his zombified memories identified Goku as. Distracted, the Seiten Taisei leapt easily aside, snarling, and sufficiently motivated for retaliation, darted up the length of Gyumaoh's gigantic blade to take the fight face to face.

Everyone watching tried not to look ill when pieces started coming off. Kougaiji grimly turned Lirin away, and found ironically that Rasetsunyo had interposed herself between _him_ and view of the messy fight as well. The remaining youkai soldiers, not as used to frontline gore as our heroes were, bravely held their ground until someone got squished by a falling eye the size of a cannonball, and Chen choked out something about 'just being over there if anyone needs us' before he and his men took off for a less scenic location.

Sanzo lit a cigarette unconcernedly. "When this is done, I'm retiring, just so you know."

"Oh no you're not," Kanzeon returned absently, watching the show. "That option was negated when you started with the shortcuts. Thanks to the new imbalance, Karma's got new plans for you, dear nephew."

A tic started up underneath Sanzo's eye. "Explain that."

"I don't think so."

"Hag…."

"Get over yourself. You made the choice, now live with the consequences." Something that might have been amusement tugged at the edge of hir mouth. "Though why you've chosen the path you did is beyond me. But, at this point, there isn't anything you can't do anything about it anyway."

"I can do something about you," he grated, hand groping for a gun that wasn't there.

Se gave him a look full of thinly veiled, malicious amusement. "Like what? Throw a rock at me?"

Shuyin snickered and obligingly clapped a hand over his mouth when Sanzo shot him a glare. Hakkai arched a questioning brow.

Kanzeon clucked. "Not a very traditional method, I admit, but effective. I'm sure it will go down in all the histories and epics as an inspiration of tactical genius."

The eye tic got worse.

Se smiled.

Gyumoah croaked and for the most part everyone didn't notice, because they were watching the far more interesting spectacle of one Genjyo Sanzo, face down in the dirt, struggling uselessly to move with a triumphantly leering bodhisattiva sitting on his back, one well manicured hand easily pinning both Sanzo's arms over his head at the wrist and generally ignoring his futile squirming. Without gun available for bullying, Sanzo had tried the more direct approach. Bad idea. Baaaaaaaad idea.

"Sit still," se scolded, tossing back dark hair. "You spend enough time on your face between Gensui, Taishou, and the monkey, so don't pretend this is a huge imposition." Se paused, considering. "Or is it on your back? I haven't been keeping track lately."

"You WATCHED!" Hakkai yelped, and even Gojyo had a shocked, scandalized expression on his face. Voyeurism was all well and good in his book, but only when Gojyo was the one who got to watch. Sanzo went frighteningly still.

The bodhisattiva gave hir servants a serene smile. "No HBO in Heaven, boys. You don't want to be marked as interesting people, don't do anything interesting."

Hakkai looked ready to pass out. Identical scandalized expressions marked the Kougaiji-tachi, except for Rasetsunyo, who looked speculative.

Gyumaoh's corpse crashing to the ground forestalled further conversation, much to the relief of two youkai and one priest.

"Took you long enough," Kanzeon groused, not bothering to remove hirself from hir perch atop Sanzo as the Seiten Taisei hopped unconcernedly off his former opponent. If there was an inch of him not covered in blood, no one present could see it. He stalked forward, claws dripping and very pointedly eyeing Kanzeon.

The bodhisattiva reached down to grab a fistful of Sanzo's hair and pulled his head up, a grin curving hir full lips as both he and the Seiten Taisei snarled at the action.

"Want this back, do you?" se drawled. The berserker hissed softly, golden gaze promising murder and mayhem.

"In a minute. I've got something else for you." Se flickered out of existence, leaving Sanzo to scramble to his feet with a curse, and reappeared a second later behind the Seiten Taisei. He tried for a vicious backhand but se caught the wrist and twisted it, forcing him down on one knee.

"Now," se leaned down to breathe in his ear. "Now, Heaven repays its debts." Hir other hand came to his cheek, and his furious yowl was lost in an explosion of light. A limiter took shape on his brow and he reeled, clutching at his temples, before finally falling forward on hands and knees. For whatever reason Goku remained conscious this time, and there were very uncharitable words intermingled with his harsh gasps for air.

Crimson gleamed at his forehead. The limiter he wore was marked with a pattern of blood red stones, increasing in size until they met in the center.

"That's new," Gojyo ventured, not sure why it made him uneasy. Kanzeon favored him with an uncomfortably sweet smile.

"He'll get used to it. But you three might not."

"What's that supposed to mean– " He broke off as Goku flinched, reacting to the sound of his voice. Irritation over Kanzeon's cryptic bullshit dissipated as the feeling of unease in his gut increased.

Goku had dragged himself back up to his knees, moving with a slow, pained deliberation that bespoke injury or absolute exhaustion. More likely the latter. The transformation took a lot out of him, and he'd been forced back and forth between it twice already today. Gold eyes oddly vacant, he looked up at Gojyo without seeing him.

Disturbed, the halfbreed took a step forward. "Oi, saru …."

Something resembling recognition slowly took shape in the boy's expression, but his voice was dazed and a bit slurred when he answered, as though he were having a hard time forming the words.

"…….Ken …nii-chan…?"

Gojyo froze. Stared.

Goku stared back, pupils so dilated that he probably wasn't seeing much of anything. Then his expression twisted, caught somewhere between pain and shock, and one hand curled around the side of the new limiter as if he wanted to pull it off but couldn't quite find the strength.

That name. That. Name. It hit Gojyo like a sucker punch to the gut, the jarring familiarity and equally certain wrongness. It felt like what happened when the idiot rebel gods tried to call him Kenren Taishou, or when Kanzeon did. Not his name. Not his name but something in him responded to it. And Goku saying it like a nickname ….

"Your hair is red," Goku murmured, gaze still transfixed, like the very idea was some sort of huge revelation. Given the current blank shock in the kid's expression, maybe it was.

Ever present smile tinged with concern, Hakkai stepped up next to Gojyo. "Goku, are you alright…?"

The brunette's only answer was a vague tracking of glazed eyes from Gojyo's face to his, and Goku's brow knit.

"…both of you look…why …" The boy shook his head, and the scarlet gems winked with the motion. "I don't understand," he managed finally, expression plaintive.

Sanzo didn't bother asking stupid questions of an idiot who obviously wasn't lucid enough to answer. He rounded on Kanzeon instead. "The fuck did you do to him?"

This earned him a contemptuous glance that in no way interfered with the bitch's self congratulatory expression. "I only gave back what was taken," se informed him. "Heaven repays its debts."

"His memories, nikkou," Shuyin supplied softly, when the light of comprehension failed to dawn in Sanzo's irate gaze. "He's fought hard enough to be entitled to …. certain compensation. Recollection of his past being only part of it." This last said with a significant Look at Kanzeon.

"Paperwork," se stated flatly, refusing to take responsibility.

"Six hundred years," Shuyin reminded hir implacably.

"Oh, sod off."

Sanzo was about to interrupt this charming little snarkfest, wanting more details on what the rest of said 'compensation' entailed, precisely, when the feeling of someone staring at him made him turn his head.

"What, you stupid – " he began to snap, knowing with utter certainty the identity of the watcher and ready to dress the idiot down, until his eyes actually met Goku's.

The world stopped. Tilted.

_:Konzen.:_

It brushed at the back of his mind like moth wings. _:Konzen:_ he heard again, an incredulous whisper. _:KonzenKonzen.:_

_:My name isn't Konzen:_ he snarled back instinctively, finding it hard to breath for some reason. He didn't realize until a few seconds later that he hadn't actually opened his mouth to say the words.

"KONZEN!"

The weight hit him dead center in his chest and he went down. Again. With a crying, wriggling, blood covered monkey trying his damndest get as close as possible, hands flickering desperately over skin and fabric, trying to assure himself that the glaring man pinned underneath him was real and not a fever dream.

"KonzenKonzenKonzen— " The words were lost between frantic kisses, and as much as Sanzo wanted to pull away and curse, his head had gone all funny and dizzy with that voice that wasn't a voice echoing every word that he heard aloud. His ears rang with it. The compulsion in it was utterly beyond his current ability to resist.

"Shut ..up …" he managed weakly, close to overwhelmed and hating it, but somewhere along the way his lungs had shrunk and he couldn't get the air in to continue any further with his protest. Couldn't draw breath at all, in fact, unless he stole it from those desperate lips. Couldn't silence the need in Goku's ragged mantra unless he answered it with equal intensity. Equal honesty.

_:Konzen …: _

The flowers on his desk were yellow. Always yellow. The brat had an unholy fascination with his hair and anything approximating the color. He pretended not to notice the small blossoms were even present, figuring that it would be admitting too much if he exhibited interest enough to move or mention them. Everyone else pretended not to notice the quiet softening of his perpetual scowl that occurred when his eyes strayed to them anyway.

_:I ….:_

_Like clockwork, every night the tiny bed next to his would empty. Like clockwork, the soft rustle of fabric and clinking of chains would herald the arrival of an intruder into his own personal space. The child never asked. He would stand at the side of the bed, waiting, shivering from cold or nightmare or whatever excuse his tiny little mind had come up with to justify the fact that he couldn't sleep alone, and he would stay there until a space was made for him. The small body fit against his like no being had a right to, like it belonged there, warm and curled and too much at peace for his own half awake mind to think of any proper objection. _

And Goku still curled when he slept, Sanzo realized dimly.

_:Konzen.:_

"I'm here," he said, or thought he did, through the drowning insanity that had become his thoughts and memories. "I'm right here."

He could taste salt on Goku's skin, feel the hitch between breaths. Tears built up over five hundred years. The boy clung to him, whispering a name that wasn't his between sobs, and when he finally pushed back the shaking frame to try and sit up himself, it shocked him to the core to see his ward's expression. Devastation. Goku didn't know the meaning of the word, at least not in the emotional sense. Terror, anger, sadness, but not true and utter _loss._ But this …this wasn't Goku. This was someone who had been alive for centuries, suffering and alone, who had been torn from everything he loved ….

As soon as he thought it Sanzo knew it was true. Didn't explain how he knew it. It had just come to him with all the absolute surety of certain of unshakeable facts of history. His dreams were full of scenes that felt the same way.

"Stop it," he muttered through the dizziness invading his senses, a little shocked at the both of them. "Stop …stop crying."

_:I lost you …:_ That voice had to be purely internal to be so clear, because Goku was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering. His hands clenched tight on Sanzo's shoulders, and probably couldn't have been pryed off with a crowbar.

"And you goddamn well found me again. So stop it. I …"

There was no help for it. Damn noisy, invasive, incorrigible monkey.

"I'm right here," he whispered into chocolate hair, pulling that trembling body to him and shielding it with his own, offering the protection, offering comfort. He was five hundred years too late for the gesture to mean anything, but he did it anyway.

Goku buried his face against Sanzo's neck and cried as though his world were ending. In a way, it was.

Gojyo sidled over to Hakkai, pretending his eyes weren't bugging out at the sight of Sanzo being so …accomodating to someone else's crisis, and also pretending that he was over the idea of Goku getting his memories returned just like that. "Um. Should we …"

Rasetsunyo answered for Hakkai, who was doing only a slightly better job at handling the concept of cuddly, compassionate Sanzo. "I would say let them alone," the Empress offered softly, "but one or the other or both is probably going to pass out in a moment." She, being the other 'parent' of the group (and definitely the more competent at the job), knew when naptime/recess was called for among restive children. "I think maybe we all need a little time to recover." She wasn't looking at Shuyin.

Shuyin took the hint anyway. Coughed. Elbowed Kanzeon, who grumbled. "Fine, fine, I'm just here to perform miracles."

"Compensation," Shuyin said sunnily. "A night and a place to spend it would be good."

Kanzeon muttered something uncomplimentary, but obligingly snapped hir fingers. The world blurred in a teleport, and the entire lot of them, Chen's company included, found themselves standing in the middle of the only undemolished structure left in the area. One of the outlying castle …things, a good distance from the main fortress itself, which was probably why it was still intact. Although completely deserted, the place was equipped with all sorts of wonderful amenities like showers and kitchens and beds.

And not a moment too soon. As predicted, Goku lost his battle with unconsciousness once everyone had made it inside, and without fanfare crumpled quietly into Sanzo's waiting arms. The priest didn't look in much better shape himself, shaken more than he would admit even to himself by the trauma wreaking havoc inside Goku's mind. The link between them resonated with it like the after shocks of an earthquake.

Sanzo was not a man prone to admitting weakness. Much less admitting that someone _else's_ weakness was messing with his head enough to make him want to give up his wavering hold on reality and follow that said someone else into oblivion. He gritted his teeth and pretended his temples weren't pounding from unnatural migraine and tried, quite valiantly, to walk in a straight line while shoring up a passed out monkey. His efforts were met with less than successful results. He braced himself against the wall for a moment, snarling in the general direction of someone's tentative offer of aid in carrying Goku.

"Don't fight with it," Kanzeon's voice came to him distantly, as if se were speaking from the other side of a tunnel, though the bodhisattiva was probably talking normally. It was his own senses that betrayed him.

"It's a natural reaction to the process of adaptation, and there's less strain put on the psyche while asleep. You'll be feeling the echoes of it, I imagine. Try and keep him under as much as you can until morning. And remember, he probably won't stay there unless you join him."

Probably true. But Sanzo didn't want to then, just to be contrary. Like he would jump at that bitch's command. He could handle this and stay perfectly lucid. They were Goku's memories anyway, not his, even if they were leaking into his head by way of that annoying mental connection.

His body, however, had other notions. His body thought that sleep sounded like an absolutely fabulous idea and was willing to go to great lengths to enforce its demand for rest. Like simply shut down here in the hallway and to hell with Sanzo's dignity.

Thus, before that could happen, he grudgingly allowed Shuyin take Goku from him without protest, so long as the boy was close by, and only managed a silent glare when Hakkai deftly inserted himself under an arm and steadied his distinctly listing gait. Hakkai was apparently over his little grudge about the shooting Gojyo and leaving him behind thing, or else Sanzo must have looked bad off enough to warrant some sympathy. With his head feeling as it did, like shit crammed into a blender, the latter was probably more accurate than the former.

"I can walk," he tried to assert, but even to his own ears the protest sounded pathetically defensive rather than confident. Hakkai didn't bother acknowledging it, especially not when Goku let out a strangled noise, unconsciously clutching at Shuyin, and something resonated through the mental channel that drowned out reality and made Sanzo's vision go gray. He was only dimly aware of the fact that he staggered, nearly tripping Hakkai. Dimly aware of his knees buckling and the floor coming rushing up to meet him, his arm sliding from the healer's shoulders.

"Sanzo --!"

Hakkai looked up at the bodhisattiva, kneeling by the unconscious man's side and accusation on his lips. "He's …

Kanzeon appeared unfazed and even a little amused. "He'll be prone to that for a while, yes. Don't look so shocked. Just think of it as having a temporary narcolepsy condition."

Gojyo choked at the thought, momentary concern instantly displaced by the image of Sanzo suddenly falling over dead asleep while in the middle of one the bitch rants he was so fond of. He tried without much success to keep away the smirk that wanted to form. Uncharitable, to be sure, but Sanzo _had_ shot him in the throat today.

Hakkai, having the better poker face, was able to keep all such thoughts from influencing his expression. "But ..the cause …"

"Oh, spillover trauma from the monkey, I imagine, and I doubt he's used to handling the linking at full strength. Don't worry, he'll adjust."

Hakkai still sounded dubious, thinking to himself that the blond might indeed adjust to …whatever mental thing there was between him and Goku becoming stronger, but he probably wouldn't adjust _well,_ being Sanzo and Sanzo being such a misanthropist. Then again, it was Goku, and maybe that would be the only thing making it bearable. How disturbing could Goku's mind be, anyway? "If you say so."

"I do, Marshal. He'll be fine."

Long used to handling Sanzo's dead weight between them (monk had always been an injury magnet), Gojyo took up Sanzo's other side as Hakkai re-shouldered a limp arm, and this time they made it to one of the empty bedrooms without further mishap. Sanzo came to for just a moment, disoriented and driven by a pain that went far beyond physical, and he lashed out wildly until Hakkai caught his fist.

"Wait, Sanzo--"

"Hakkai ..?" Violet eyes struggled to focus and failed spectacularly.

The healer nodded, wondering if it would be safe to sedate either priest or monkey for the duration of this whole mess. "It's alright. Calm down."

"Saru's right here too, bouzo," Gojyo added, correctly guessing at and forestalling the next question. Even unconscious and drowning in a whirlwind of memory Goku gravitated to his savior, and one hand was already reaching out blindly for Sanzo before Shuyin could get him settled next to the monk.

Goku's presence seemed to be a better deterrent to further violence than any of Hakkai or Gojyo's reassurances, since Sanzo started to relax back as the boy curled at his side.

Started to. And just as abruptly, his jaw clenched.

_"You."_

Hakkai blinked, taken aback at the hissed word. Sanzo wasn't looking at him, was looking at something beyond his shoulder, fuzziness receding from the blond's gaze as he stared in …shock? anger? pain?

Gojyo looked back and forth, mystified, between a very pale former Toushin Taishi and a Sanzo gone rigid.

"You lied to me," Sanzo said quite clearly into the silence, violet eyes locked on gold ones, before awareness slid from him like a wave and he slumped.

For a second no one spoke. Hakkai and Gojyo turned to eye Shuyin, one with puzzlement and the other with suspicion, both equally as confused as to what the hell that had been all about.

Shuyin backed away in the face of their scrutiny, still looking like he'd seen a ghost. Before either of them could demand an explanation, he stammered something about needing to talk to Kanzeon and bolted like a panicked rabbit.

"……what _is_ it with War Gods?" Gojyo grumbled finally, hauling himself to his feet. "Do they have a prerequisite mental disorder that makes them act like freaks or something?"

Hakkai was still looking at the doorway from where Shuyin had made his escape, nonplussed. "I have no idea. But their lot seems to make a habit of withholding information."

"Whatever." Gojyo was suddenly very tired and not up to pursuing stupid mysteries. It had been a fucking long day. He wanted a shower and a meal and some booze, and then a nap. Sanzo and Goku had the right idea with the whole unconsciousness thing. "We can beat it out of him later or something, I guess, when Sanzo's awake to hear."

Hakkai's mouth twitched, distracted from his own contemplation of the puzzle. "I somehow doubt a few lowly mortals like ourselves would have the ability to even bruise him, unless we're enlisting Goku. Even then, he's stronger than Homura, apparently."

Gojyo shrugged. "So we get Kougaiji's hottie mom to do it for us."

A note of exasperation entered the healer's voice. "Gojyo. It's discourteous to refer to an Empress as a 'hottie.' Show some respect."

"I am! I'm showing respect for the fact that she's a major fox!"

Hakkai sighed.

Five minutes later, back down in the main hall, Gojyo and Hakkai found what looked to be a full fledged riot in process over who got first dibs on what domestic amenities offered by the castle. Chen and his soldiers had hastily excused themselves from the sortie by fleeing for the lower level servant quarters. Kanzeon, who Shuyin had been in whispered conversation with before breaking away guiltily at Hakkai and Gojyo's re-appearance, flickered out just before the arguments turned physical, snickering about being back in the morning to check for survivors. Therefore, se wasn't present to witness the end of the conflict; namely, the fireball that blew out the side of the castle.

"Er." Rasetsunyo bit her lip. "Not what I was aiming for. Sorry."

Gojyo peered out the massive smoking hole to the ground far, far below. A crispy fried Shuyin lay sprawled among the wreckage. "No, no, you got him all right." So much for trying to interrogate the bastard.

"Adds new meaning to the phrase 'domestic dispute,' doesn't it?" Doku said under his breath, and Yaone had to hide a snicker at the absolutely stricken expression (again) on Kougaiji's face. His dearest mother, who he'd worked so hard to rescue, who he'd held as an ideal in his mind for over five hundred years ….was sort of a psycho lady. Oh, she was kind and beautiful and regal and other Empress-like things when she put her mind to it, but the woman herself, not the Empress of Tenjiku but Rasetsu, had faults and eccentricities like everyone else. One of these being the tendency to hurl pyrokinetics at her extramarital lover, perhaps because she knew he could take it. Rough love indeed.

Kougaiji's poor abused mind settled only on the conclusion that he was never getting married, if this was supposed to be an example of wedded (or not) bliss.

"Well, in light of certain structural deficiencies in the area," Hakkai began, discretely tugging a gawking Lirin back from the edge before she tumbled off the precipice. "I suggest we relocate …?"

They all agreed this was a good idea. Once resettled in the opposite wing, they also all agreed that it would be more productive to draw cards for luxury of choice. There were only so many sides of a building that could be destroyed before the whole thing collapsed, after all.

Evening found the raging fires at Houtou burned down to nothing, while another one blazed up under the darkening sky. Gyumaoh's funeral pyre, courtesy of his wife-now-widow, who stood watching the inferno quietly. She had waited until her son and the others were settled before slipping out and back to the battle scene. Kougaiji hadn't seen her go. Kougaiji probably wasn't going to be happy about being apart from her (he seemed to have picked up a disturbing codependent habit somewhere along the way while she'd been sleeping) but there were things a person just had to do alone. Cremation of departed zombie spouses was one of these things.

There were no tears to shed for the former Emperor. Their beginnings had been cordial enough, but polite civility between two newlyweds who really didn't know each other very well hadn't lasted long. They hadn't been for good for each other. Or to each other. Both of them were, first and foremost, only a means to an end for the other. He had a beautiful, elegant, and intelligent trophy wife to parade around, who would surely throw a healthy child to be made heir, and he kept to his concubines for affection. He didn't care that she didn't love him. She was grateful to him only for the elevation in status. As Empress, she'd suddenly been in a position to help her people recover from years of incessant warfare. It was only thanks to her that Gyumaoh had even held onto the throne as long as he had, because all the warring factions settled their bloodlust into dormancy when it became apparent that someone in the ruling hierarchy was interested in the good of the land. Her husband might have won the throne through strength of arms, but he had kept it only by Rasetsunyo's humanitarianism.

They were not good for each other. Every word spoken between them, every forced act of civility, had been one of necessity or expediency. It was like a part time job, playing the role of his wife.

She'd have gone insane long ago trying to keep up the pretense if not for Shuyin's presence in her life. And then, Kougaiji's. It wasn't fair for her to have pushed him so young into such a position, a lifeline to sanity, but near the end, when everything else was falling apart, there was nothing else to live for except for the light in his young eyes.

He had grown up, she had to remind herself. There were shadows and guilt in those eyes now, things that she wanted to pretend weren't there. Pain and sorrow and burden she wanted to pretend he hadn't become intimately acquainted with as Gyokumen's unwilling puppet, but she couldn't deny the maturity those experiences had given him. He was already older than she'd been when she married. Old enough to have a spouse or a lover or even children of his own …

"Rasetsu-okasaaaaaaaaan!"

A Lirin shaped missile nearly sent the Empress sprawling, but she managed to keep her feet. Huge green eyes flashed at her. "What're you doing out here all by yourself? There might be more zombie things, or …or …"

The quiet purple haired girl, Yaone, came running up, her expression a mixture of horrified apology and exasperation. "Rasetsunyo-sama, forgive me, she heard Kougaiji-sama wonder where you were and just took off— "

"Nii-chan and Lirin-chan were worried about you!" A tug on her waist. "Come back inside, ne?"

"Alright. It's alright," Rasetsunyo heard herself say, meeting Yaone's gaze with a smile. "I was just about to head back anyway." There was hardly any danger of the crematory fire spreading on barren rock and sand.

Shuyin had told her once that being a parent was the both the best and worst thing for a person. The best, because there was no feeling that could equal bringing life into existence, holding it, loving it, and knowing that it loved you back to the best of its poor ability. The worst, because when your children were grown enough to seek that same path, you had nothing to fall back on until …

_..until they start a family of their own._

Yaone seemed like a polite young woman. Good looks. Sensible. Rasetsunyo wondered idly if Kougaiji had asked her to bear his heir yet.

Lirin tugged on her again, and Rasetsunyo, bemused, allowed herself to be pulled along. Amazing that any get of Gyokumen's would be so pure hearted. Amazing Lirin had been raised as any sort of decent person at all, in the court of a murderous, scheming bitch. Kougaiji'd had a hand in it, she didn't doubt. Yaone too. And that bondsman, Doku. Not a stereotypical family unit, but something had gone right, if they'd kept Lirin from ending up like the immoral trash that made up her genetic family.

She would have to make discrete inquiries as to which one, alchemist or swordsman, her son was bedding. Or if it was both, since he obviously cared for both. That was hardly a shock. No surprise at all, really, that any son of Shuyin's would turn his head for like gender as well as the fairer sex.

If he _did_ happen to be sleeping with both, however …. by traditional law the Emperor could have only one official consort, but the great thing about being Emperor was the ability to change traditional law to suit one's whims, so long as it didn't interfere with the stability of the realm. Moreover, Rasetsunyo had no intention of pushing Kougaiji into the position of Emperor where he might have to make such choices until he felt ready to take up the burden.

First things first. She smiled deviously. So she'd lost her son to adulthood. Life went on. Now she had in-laws (or unofficial ones, at least) to meddle with.

As soon as they got back inside she descended like the wrath of Heaven on a startled (and sashless, earringless) Shuyin, who had been involved with something obviously nefarious with all the empty bottles of liquor on the table and playing cards arranged for poker and the guilty expressions on the faces of everyone in the room. Gambling or a drinking game or both, the idiot. She quite forgot to scold him for it, already over her previous irritation, and eager now to drag him off and talk of weddings and plans for the future and …other things. Somewhere along the line her train of thought got sidetracked, and she discovered that whatever he'd been drinking tasted a lot like absinthe, and discussion quickly became a lost cause after that.

Gojyo refrained from voicing the myriad lewd (and jealous) comments that the Empress and Shuyin's conspicuous absences brought to mind, and everyone else was too polite to mention them. Five hundred years was a long time to go without the basic necessities of life, Kougaiji supposed, pointedly ignoring Lirin's questions about where her newly adopted mom had gone in such a hurry as Yaone ushered her off to bed. Still, it was a very disturbing thought.

Half an hour later, he stopped brooding about the whole thing when Gojyo won another hand, alcohol dimmed attention successfully diverted. There'd been a rather nice assortment of liquor squirreled away in the cellar that the boys, en masse, decided to make it their mission to put a sizeable dent in by morning.

"….no way." He stared at the cards that had been smacked triumphantly down on the table, then up at Gojyo's shit eating smirk. "No way," he repeated, caught somewhere between anger and mortification.

"Loser loses another piece," the halfbreed reminded him, scarlet eyes glittering with vicious amusement over another's predicament. "Off with the pants, Red Boy."

"Whose bloody idea was it to play strip poker anyway?" Kougaiji groused as he fumbled with his belt. He'd been lucky enough to avoid baring skin for most of the game, as each piece of jewelry counted as an individual article and Kou had smugly divested himself of all ornamentation first before actually taking anything incriminating off.

"Shuyin's," Doku muttered, looking disgruntled. He was down to one boot and trousers. Gojyo was sprawled quite comfortably across a fully dressed Hakkai (save for his sash ribbon thing) in only socks and boxers, and no one thought for a moment that it wasn't deliberate that Gojyo had lost that much clothing.

Kougaiji blinked. "But Shuyin ..isn't .."

"Around to suffer the consequences?" Hakkai added dryly, idly flicking Gojyo's ponytail with the hand that wasn't holding his cup of sake. "I'm beginning to wonder if that wasn't the idea. Is he really your father?"

The prince shrugged, eeling out of his pants with far more grace than Gojyo had previously exhibited in doing the same. It wasn't everyday one saw a kappa hopping around on one foot, swearing at the inexplicable snag of material that wouldn't let him kick the rest of it off. Hakkai, knowing Gojyo's usual proficiency at getting himself (and others) out of clothing, chalked it up to the quality alcohol and added Jien factor. Gojyo wasn't precisely himself around Jien.

"My mother seems fairly sure, and she would know." It was easier to ignore the fact and treat the man like …well, his mother's boyfriend. Kougaiji certainly didn't remember Shuyin during his childhood. And he was too old now to accept so easily a new father figure in his life, when he had such awful memories of Gyumaoh botching the job. Better to treat the former Toushin Taishi like a stranger, an ally, an equal, rather than a paternal authority figure. Because really, what sort of responsible father initiated a strip poker game?

"I suppose."

Yaone wandered back into the room with a harried expression and made a beeline for the nearest bottle, ignoring her pantless lord and savior standing there like an idiot.

"I had to dose Lirin to get her to sleep," she announced to the room at large after snagging a full, unopened container and rendering it otherwise. There was a certain edge to her normally soft voice. "After sixty minutes of explaining why 'Kougaiji nii-chan' gets to stay up and she doesn't and why 'baldy Sanzo and Goku-chan' went off together hours ago and why 'Rasetsu okasan' and braid boy did the same and _why_ ….." She stopped. Took a breath. Took a drink. Her voice was much calmer when she started again. "You get the idea. So anyone who wants to argue with me being here and drinking myself unconscious can kindly go to Hell."

Kougaiji had the good grace to look guilty. "Uh."

"Oh don't worry about it. I love your sister. I just sometimes want to permanently damage her vocal chords." She blinked, focusing on the present redheads' lack of pants. "Wait, why are you three all …."

"Strip poker," Gojyo said brightly, too obviously comfortable draped all over Hakkai to even pretend to flirt with a girl and not look moronic. "Wanna play?"

"That might be somewhat inappropriate…" Hakkai began, slightly flustered on Yaone's behalf, until she waved him off.

"In this crowd? Like any of you care." Yaone had actually snagged herself a glass or eight of liquor before heading back to what had been dubbed the common room, having a spectacular migraine after dealing with Lirin. Said migraine was now pleasantly drowned and fuzzy, so too were her normal painfully polite manners.

"I care!" came the chorus from half siblings and one prince.

"Most of the time," Gojyo added as an afterthought, sliding a hand surreptitiously up Hakkai's thigh. The action was born with good grace, although the brunette's fingers tightened in Gojyo's ponytail. "Not right now, though."

"We noticed. No, I'll just watch, thanks." Miss Mouse was a lot less prim and proper and damn near impossible to faze after a decent buzz.

"Hakkai's already won anyway," Kougaiji said hastily, dark skin hiding most of the blush threatening to burn his face off. "There's no point in dragging out the inevitable." So saying, he exited the room with pants in hand and some empty liquor bottles in the other, on pretext of tossing some of the used glassware.

Doku nearly choked when he thought he heard Yaone mutter "Spoilsport" under her breath.

_And meanwhile, In a Certain Bedroom_

"Rasetsu dearest, you're going to set the sheets on fire again if you don't – "

"Shut. Up."

"Shutting up."

* * *

What, you wanted outtakes? This whole thing is one giant outtake that oughta be cut.


	8. Episode 8: Indelible Sin

Part Eight

Sanzo woke up in a dark room with a splitting headache and the familiar feeling of dead exhaustion weighing down his body. This was not unusual. Nor was it unusual for him to wake with his arm going numb because some stupid idiot was laying on it and cutting off his circulation.

With some difficulty he brought his other arm across to _shove_ a …Goku, he realized dimly, off the tingling limb, so he could go back to sleep in peace with full bloodflow restored.

Except touching Goku brought memory rushing back with all the subtlety of a speeding train.

_Firebloodwhitewallsscreamingragefearfloweryellowbookswordblackleathertrustlovelosspainpainpain--_

Dammit, the room was spinning again. Not all those memories were his. He snarled silently, hating both the vertigo and the fact that he couldn't stop the bedroom from wavering before his eyes, images running like wet paint before melting into something else entirely. Another bedroom, familiar, though Sanzo was certain he'd never seen it in this life. Another shadowed ceiling. Another shuttered window. A darkness cloaking them that wasn't so deep as the one he'd just been looking at, because everything was muted like that in Heaven. The sound of someone else's breathing hadn't changed, though the warmth at his side was a lot more unobtrusive before the growth spurt.

_It's not real,_ he told himself even as all five senses tried to convince him otherwise. _None of this is real._

It wanted to be real. It felt real. The sheets under him were softer, the air sweeter with the faintest hint of sakura and incense, and if he turned his head to look at the child nestled neatly in the space between arm and torso, it would be the same stupid monkey that he'd rescued from a stone prison. The same open, unguarded expression. The same long hair and rounded cheeks of prepubescent youth. The same deceptive frailty of build that somehow bore up the heavy clanking weight of his manacles. Chains made Goku look too young, as did bonds of any kind, which was why Sanzo never used any on him in their games even if Goku would insist that he didn't mind, that he wouldn't panic so long as Sanzo was the one tying him down.

The dream rippled. There. Think of what hadn't happened five hundred years ago because Goku had still been a child. Think of what Sanzo hadn't meant to happen at all, because Goku was boisterous and annoying and it had been an accident, a mistake that Sanzo berated himself for ever allowing to occur. Not because it wasn't good. Not because Goku wasn't good, to him and for him. Merely because tumbling the monkey was infinitely more dangerous than using Hakkai or Gojyo. He could always tell Hakkai or Gojyo to fuck off and that would be it between them if he wanted to end things. Easy.

Goku with his eyes slitted gold in desperate hunger and a feverish blush rising on his cheeks as he panted, thighs spread invitingly and Sanzo's name purred deep in his throat, was a lot harder to dismiss. A hell of a lot harder.

Reality grudgingly re-arranged itself in proper order once more, having no chance against more immediate memories like the cradle of pressure and fire that was Goku letting him inside. Like the noise the boy made when he reached climax, and the marks he left behind because the _itan_, for all his adamant personal code that he would never, ever hurt his sun, could turn into an uncontrolled creature who bit and writhed and clung finally, sweet submission, while Sanzo drove him slowly out of his mind.

The room came back into focus, Heaven giving up on trying to rival Sanzo's less than divine train of thought. Score.

Pain, however, greeted him through the mental link as soon as he was (somewhat) back in his right mind and derailed the pleasant distraction of reminiscence. Fuck.

Goku shifted, making a noise that sounded far too much like a agonized whimper for Sanzo's comfort, and curled tighter in on himself, pressing his forehead against the older man's shoulder. Seeking assurance. Possibly picking up on Sanzo's own state of awake. Too weary and disoriented to be his normal heartless bastard self, the priest obliged and let the boy hide in the circle of his arms, pulling him close and tucking a dark head under his chin. The tension in that wiry body eased but did not disappear completely, indicating a state far from the contentment of deep sleep. Dreaming. Dreaming of Heaven and gods, white walls and blood and the scent of sakura petals.

It was going to be a long night. Sanzo shut his eyes and reached futilely for the calm of meditation, knowing he wouldn't be able to settle his thoughts enough to find it, because he was dealing with the monkey's internal chaos as well as his own. This prediction turned out to be quite accurate. He lay awake, listening to Goku's labored breathing and barely even noticing the unconscious movements of his right hand, stroking the boy's back in a futile attempt to soothe.

There was no comfort. No escape from the images in his head. In their heads. And he had no warning five minutes later, other than a sudden tensing of muscles, when Goku finally jerked awake with a dead man's name on his lips and a grief so deep and black welling in his thoughts that it drowned them both.

_:He'sdeadhe'sdeadohgodhe'sdeadIlosthim—:_

The rest degenerated into incoherent hysterics. Awake, Goku's mind through their link was hardly more rational than it was in berserker form, and Sanzo, caught quite unprepared by the storm, was swept off his metaphorical feet by the mental onslaught of crushing despair. He might have blacked out again. A child's voice, distant and terrified and wailing for someone named Konzen, was the last thing he heard.

Let it never be said that Sanzo wasn't a hardy, resilient bastard, however. He broke the waters of consciousness not a minute later and fought his way back to full awareness. He would not tolerate being plowed under by the strength of some idiot's angst alone.

Goku was still crying. Still distraught and lost and caught between his memory nightmare and waking world. Steeling himself this time for the backlash, Sanzo called his ward tentatively with thought alone. Brat probably wouldn't hear him over the noise of his own grief if he tried to say it aloud. _:Goku.:_

The response was weak, thready, but definitely there. A pause, a hitch in breath. _:…..Kon ..zen …:_

_:Here.:_

Disbelief. Realization slow to come, mired in the deep murk of history. _:You …you're ..:_

_:Not dead. Here. I'm here.:_

Giving the boy something tangible to focus on seemed to help. There were marks left where Goku clutched at him too fiercely, but Sanzo wasn't about to complain about a bruise or two if it brought the monkey back or just closer to something resembling sanity.

Slowly, too slowly, the wracking, uncontrollable sobs died down into occasional hitches of breath. Slowly, too slowly, the iron tension eased away until Goku lay quiet in his arms, limp and unresisting and utterly drained. Sanzo was feeling much the same way. His brain felt as though it had been run through a meatgrinder. Bad enough he had to be witness to the hysteria, the sensememory leaking through their bond just had to go ahead and give him the first person experience of it, too.

He hoped fervently that the worst was over. He didn't think either of them could take much more. At least the brat was awake now, or something approximating. Dark hair brushed softly against his cheek as Goku settled closer. The clean shirt Kanzeon had conjured for him was wet at the shoulder with salt misery.

The return of lost memories should have been a blessing. Goku had certainly seemed to want them back. Now though, witnessing their aftermath, Sanzo wondered if the boy was regretting that seal being lifted.

_He_ certainly was. The mental connection that bound them had flared from the little tiny thread it normally was to a river, flooding two ways between them, and his head ached with thoughts and emotions that weren't his own. Whatever Goku was seeing in his memories, it called up something equally buried and painful in Sanzo. Blood kept seeping into the edges of the scenes playing out in his mind that were beyond his ability to comprehend, not knowing who the people in them were or why it mattered so much that he didn't know. He could grasp only the dim sense of catastrophe, of violence and pain and dissolving faith, and the flashes of loss that told him there, a life had been snuffed out, an important life, gone like a candleflame and swallowed up by the night. Goku had been the only one left, somehow. Watching, screaming, crying, as his world collapsed around him.

_..so much blood ... _

Goku trembled, and it made own throat tighten in shared grief even as his ward choked down another sob. This was just the sort of 'compensation' he ought to have expected from the hag. The saru was obviously not up to dealing with his history and it was tearing him apart trying to cope with it. Not to mention, dragging Sanzo down with him.

They were both going insane.

_:Konzen ...:_

Not the least because Sanzo was hearing voices. Or rather, a voice.

He'd always been able to hear it. Always had some uncanny ability of perception that let him pick up on things that weren't being said aloud. Take the whole possessed Kougaiji mess, for instance. And Goku's incessant calling for him so many years ago.

But it had never been like this. Never this close. Never this clear, like someone was whispering in his ear. And never, ever this perceptive, as if the saru (even barely coherent) were responding to his very thoughts.

_:I'm not Konzen:_ he tried to insist.

The voice faltered, and Goku shuddered in his arms. "It .." Broken, raspy, throat scratchy from the waterworks.

_: ..hurts ...Konzen ...:_

He was at a loss, driven by the despair in that unspoken plea to act but completely without any notion of just what he was supposed to do. The re-alignment of someone's head was surely a painful process. He tried not to flinch as another flicker of sense memory escaped through their link, drowning him for a moment in remembrance of coldemptylonging trapped inside a stone prison. Goku had slept through a great deal of his confinement, when time meant nothing and his thoughts drifted aimlessly even when his eyes stayed open. It was not unlike what Kougaiji had endured, sealed half in dreaming at Houtou Castle. Most of the experience was a hazy blur for Goku, with bouts of lucidity only returning to him during the last hundred years or so. Each of those, however, was a knife twisting in Sanzo's gut now.

He needed to sleep. They needed to sleep. Kanzeon had been very adamant about that, since the re-structuring of a mind was a delicate business, and adapting to it a very dangerous process if things were ...rushed. Se'd probably meant dangerous only to Goku, but Sanzo wasn't feeling so stable himself anymore with their link raw and unprotected and projecting the way it was.

_:Calm down: _he tried, unconsciously echoing Hakkai and aiming for soothing. Something which, admittedly, he didn't do very well, but he was reaching the end of his endurance. Another episode of upset and he was going to find the nearest sharp object to ram into his temples. Or Goku's. Or first Goku's and then his own. _:Stop thinking about it. The hag said ...said you need to sleep and let it sink in that way.:_

_:Can't sleep: _was all he got in reply, not that he was expecting much else. Were their positions reversed, Sanzo would have snarled at how the fuck anyone could be expected to sleep when the mother of all supernatural migraines was tearing through one's brain, slowly reforming it as it went along.

Maybe if he went to that apothocary chick. She might have something convenient and pill sized to induce unconsciousness. Or Hakkai might. In fact, if Hakkai had been intelligent …

He nearly knocked over one of the glasses of water that was sitting on the bedside table, and even managed a triumphant twist of lips when he found the two accompanying pills. Oh, joy of joys and happy day. Hakkai was getting nominated for sainthood. Hakkai was getting lots of ohgodthankyousomuch sex as soon as Sanzo's head was straightened out enough that he could sit up without the dizziness knocking him flat again.

Goku wasn't much on coherence, still halfway between dreaming and waking, but he picked up on what Sanzo wanted him to do readily enough, and obediently swallowed down the bitter sedative. The projections slipping through their link blurred, slowed, and finally died away altogether as Goku's mind gradually shut down.

Leaving Sanzo mercifully, blissfully alone in his. He paused in reaching for the second pill, wanting to savor the feeling of not having any more intrusive presences in his skull…

_Gold eyes. Shock and betrayal. "You lied to me."_

….except for the sensememories that had already managed to leak through and anchor themselves. He growled. Stupid fucking memories that weren't his own. Stupid fucking monkey for giving them to him. Stupid fucking hag for facilitating this in the first place. Stupid, fucking, goddamn mental link that neither knew how to control.

But it wouldn't go away now. The flash of recognition and anger, and the sense of satisfaction he'd gotten in seeing the other man flinch at his accusation. He had no idea why he'd said it. He only knew that it was true, which meant a certain ex-Toushin Taishi had some explaining to do.

Stewing over this was a lot less distracting than an out of control telepathic channel. His body, while incessantly whining about how lethargic and tired it was, now took the opportunity also to remind Sanzo that he was a heavy smoker, and that discontinuing the trend so suddenly as he had would result in very, very bad things if the habit was not fed and fed soon. As an afterthought, his stomach added that it wouldn't mind being fed either.

Oh, _cigarettes._ His mouth actually started watering at the thought. Goku was so deeply asleep Sanzo could hardly register him even being alive through their link, so there was little chance of him waking up with further hysterics if Sanzo just took five minutes to slip off and indulge…

Tired, his body tried to remind him when he contemplated the act of sitting up. Sanzo ignored it. It wasn't physical exhaustion that made him lethargic, it was mental, because judging by the lack of light he'd already gotten an evening and probably half a night of uninterrupted sleep. More than he was used to, really.

After have extricated himself from Goku and the tangle of warm sheets, he paused at the door, hesitating.

Whatever. Like the monkey could even hear him. But a hint of gold winked from the bedside table where a certain pagan's pendant lay, and Sanzo grudgingly recalled some sort of internal decision made in a blood soaked castle to be more honest. With himself and others.

"I'll be right back," he said, only a tad surly. Goku didn't even twitch. Bastard.

He was already out in the hallway before the intangible mothwing sensation of someone else's thoughts brushing his own came, and knew that, on some level, he had been heard.

-

Basic necessities of survival seen to, Sanzo was feeling a lot better (but not enough to warrant a good mood, because his head still ached and it was still some ungodly hour of the pre-dawn morning) when he ran into Rasetsunyo.

She looked about as tired as he felt. There were shadows under her eyes that he didn't remember noticing before, as well as rigid lines of tension in her face and in the set of her shoulders. 'Death warmed over' was too strong a description, but certainly nearing the end of endurance.

He neglected to mention any of this. Stress was only to be expected, after all, putting up with his pack of idiots as well as her own.

Her hair was wet, what little of it that hadn't been hidden up under a towel, and the lack of earrings or proper clothing besides a fluffy robe indicated just what she had been doing at this unholy time of morning instead of sleeping like a sane person.

Then again, given what she'd mentioned of her history, perhaps she was used to waking up so early in order to kick a certain someone out of her bed before the rest of the world roused and discovered her little affair.

The paradoxical image of him up and about and lurking in the hallway didn't seem to be registering well with her. "Sanzo-sama," she said blankly. "You're awake."

"Not willingly." Sanzo was faintly disgusted with himself at not being able to put off the issue of memory until a more decent hour.

One could almost see the mental shake she gave herself, and that taken aback expression melted from her face into one of suspicion. A faintly accusing, very mom-like note entered her voice. "Did you take the medicine? That god …woman …thing ..said you had to take the medicine if you woke up, and Hakkai agreed to make sure you did."

"Later," he said shortly, wondering at what point the Empress had gotten to a first name basis with Hakkai, or where she got off acting like his health was any of her concern. "I have a few things to take care of before that."

Her expression was still vaguely disapproving. "I know it's been three days, and you're surely feeling better, but still …" She stopped at the look on his face. "What?"

Sanzo was staring. "It's been …." He stopped. Tried to get his brain in order enough to process the illogic of that statement, and failed. "That's impossible. It can't have been that long."

She gave him an odd look before repeating herself, more carefully this time. "You've been asleep for three days. Goku as well."

He continued to stare. Three days he'd lost. No wonder he felt like so much shit crammed into a blender.

"Why didn't someone wake me up!"

"Kannon-sama told us not to try and wake either of you before you were ready."

He glared, still not willing to concede his point even against what amounted to a divine decree. They should have known better. There were things needing to be done, and no time to waste dicking around here. Fuckit, Hakkai should have known better.

"He's just down the hall if you'd like to bitch," Rasetsunyo offered wryly, in no way apologetic (moms were long used to the frustration of sick children over their own impotence), and Sanzo realized he must have said that last aloud.

"If he's even awake I'm sure he's busy. And I've got better things to do than interrupt him and the cockroach," he snapped, figuring that if it had been three days stuck in relatively close quarters, Rasetsunyo ought to have already discerned for herself that Hakkai and Gojyo could not be trusted alone with each other.

One fine red eyebrow arched. "He's awake. But not busy, I'm sure. Gojyo took a room back down the opposite hall after …um." She broke off abruptly.

Sanzo's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "After ….?"

"Um." Her gaze slid away from his in distinctly shifty fashion. Empress or not, imperial diplomacy was a skill it took several cups of strong coffee to work up to in the pre-dawn morning.

"You should go talk to Hakkai," she suggested with false brightness, recovering, before adding on (with a flicker of recalled matronly admonishment): "If you're positive you won't go back to sleep, that is."

"I'm not going back to sleep," he growled, disgusted both at her evasions and the mere suggestion of him giving in so easily. "Apparently the rest of the world can't handle my absence. We must be in the middle of a disaster by now, after three days without me."

There was something very ominous in the silence that suddenly fell.

Bloody fuck. He shouldn't have opened his mouth. "What happened."

Rasetsunyo met his gaze steadily but did not explain. After a moment she said slowly, "I think, given the state of things, you might want to speak to your allies first before hearing anything from me. And I don't have time to give the full explanation right now."

He was unimpressed by her sudden attack of Grim and Somber. "Are you being deliberately evasive just to annoy me, or is it a personality defect?"

"I have a family to look after, Sanzo-sama," she informed him with quiet dignity, refusing to rise to the bait. "Not to mention a dynasty. Forgive me if I'm a little pre-occupied."

"What's that supposed to – "

He shut up when Rasetsunyo pulled back a drawn curtain on the closest window, so he had a clear view of the shimmering, unmistakable lights of campfires numbering in the thousands scattered as far as the eye could see around the castle.

Sanzo had seen enough military encampments to recognize an army settled into siege.

"Um," he echoed intelligently.

She was already knocking on Hakkai's door when he caught up to her and said flatly, "There's an army outside."

"Yes," she replied serenely.

"There's an _army_ outside. Encamped."

"Yes, Sanzo-sama."

"In siege formation."

"Yes, Sanzo-sama."

"Outside _this_ castle."

_"Yes,_ Sanzo-sama."

The door opened and Rasetsunyo was spared any further inane repetitions. Sanzo took one look, turned an alarming shade of white and did a fabulous encore performance of his earlier passionate embrace with the floor.

Goujun looked down with a faintly puzzled expression at the monk sprawled senseless at his boots. "It's for you, Tenpou."

Hakkai sighed.

-

Sanzo woke up in a dark room with a splitting headache and the familiar feeling of dead exhaustion weighing down his body. This seemed to be a popular state of affairs for him lately.

"Sanzo?"

"No," he retorted acidly without opening his eyes. He didn't have to see Hakkai's polite, slightly strained, oh-honestly smile to know it was there. Which was better than the worried-but-trying-to-hide-it smile that had been there moments before, evidenced by the particular tone in his voice when he'd said Sanzo's name.

Opening his eyes and forcing them to focus took more effort than he wanted to admit. Two blurred shapes hovering over him resolved into one green, slightly less blurred Hakkai and one white, slightly less blurred —

Sanzo passed out again.

"Maybe you should stand somewhere where he can't see you," Hakkai suggested at last, somewhat nettled.

Goujun grumbled about weak pathetic mortals and moved over to the wall.

-

For the third time Sanzo woke up in a dark room with a splitting headache and the familiar feeling of dead exhaustion weighing down his body. "Hakkai."

"Yes, Sanzo?"

"He's not supposed to be here." There was no need to indicate who the 'he' in question was.

"Well, technically he's been here all along, but Kanzeon granted him the license to return to his true form when se came back yesterday. Some part of the recompense Heaven owes us, I believe."

"But he's _dead._" Goku's memories told him so.

"He was reincarnated into this life, as were we all."

The blond shook off Hakkai's hand as he sat up, trying to rise to his feet and opting instead to remain seated on the edge of the bed when vertigo started to pull at his senses. His suspicious gaze remained pinned on the intruder leaning against the wall, however. "Reincarnated as what? It's only been the four of us— "

Sanzo stopped. Glared suspiciously at the white clad Dragon King of the Western Ocean.

Goujun glared right back. "Has no one ever told you that it is impolite to put out cigarettes on the upholstery of someone else's vehicle?"

Sanzo made an untranslatable noise and started cursing. The word "Jiipu" could be discerned (barely) in the middle of all the obscenities.

Hakkai eyed his teammate with frowning disapproval. "Did you really, Sanzo? I told Gojyo I'd skin him alive if I ever caught him doing that again."

"I might have gotten scars if the damage didn't disappear after shifting between forms." Goujun added unhelpfully, sounding aggrieved. "Not to mention the mental trauma, which –didn't- disappear after shifting between forms." He directed a significant Look at Hakkai, who looked briefly alarmed before blushing furiously.

In between more profanity (and blushing a bit himself), Sanzo ground out, "It was his idea to try it on the hood."

Betrayed, Hakkai countered that it had been Sanzo's idea to try it in the backseat.

"And whose idea was it to try it while driving?" Goujun asked from between gritted teeth. Fangs. Whatever it was that dragons had.

Hakkai and Sanzo pointed at each other simultaneously. Then Sanzo realized he had no recollection of that whatsoever.

"Wait, no, that was Gojyo," Hakkai admitted.

Sanzo stared at him askance. "And where was _I?_"

Hakkai flashed a falsely bright smile. "You were asleep."

"In the seat right next to you!"

"We were quiet."

Goujun muttered darkly, "No you weren't."

Hakkai's smile cracked a bit around the edges.

Sanzo cradled his aching head in his hands and wished fervently that he had stayed in bed.

"If your head still hurts, you should have stayed in bed." Hakkai even had the balls to sound reproving.

The monk stopped headaching and started glaring. "There's a goddamn army encamped outside that none of you retards saw fit to inform me about. I'm not going back to bed."

"Oh yes. That."

"Yes. _That._ What the fuck happened?"

"Youkai democracy in action," Goujun remarked cryptically, pushing himself off the wall. "Which I trust you'll have no difficulty in explaining without my aid, Marshal," and he nodded to Hakkai in a very military way, "so I'll just be somewhere else." He was out the door before the brunette's soft, startled 'alright' had even faded.

Sanzo watched the door click shut and opened his mouth.

"Don't. Just. Don't." One could nearly see Hakkai's patient civility draining away as he sank down into a chair. "I've heard enough from Gojyo already and, sick man or not, I will be forced to take measures if I hear it from you."

"Screw that." Sanzo didn't have to ask to know that Gojyo and Hakkai had been fighting (Hakkai had that wounded hate-you-love-you Gonou Look in his eyes again). Nor did he have to ask to know that the halfbreed was probably off somewhere being jealous/depressed/furious because a former suitor of Tenpou's (or at least that's what Sanzo thought he was picking up from Goku's memories) had been reincarnated as Hakkai's beloved pet and was now, to put it bluntly, back in form to pick things up where they'd been left off. Gojyo was so predictable, and Sanzo certainly wasn't going to follow his example by bitching about omg wtf had Hakkai been doing with the newly restored Goujun in his room at such an unholy hour. Sanzo didn't care. Really. Not a bit.

Okay, so Sanzo would care later. Right now he wanted to know why they were under seige.

Hakkai studied the ceiling. He looked harried and exhausted as well, the blond noted with distinct displeasure, and found his mood souring further by the second. Whatever was going on, Sanzo had a huge hunch that it wasn't anything non-Tenjiku dwellers needed to involve themselves in, and a stressed Hakkai smacked heavily of involvement.

"Is Goku alright?" the human-turned-youkai asked at last, rather than offering any useful information.

"Yes. And if you don't answer my question I'll throttle you," Sanzo promised.

"…I guess I don't need to ask if you're alright, then, if you're up to making death threats."

"I'm up to making good on them, too."

"No doubt." Hakkai rubbed at his temple. "I'm afraid we may have gotten into something very nasty," he admitted. "Granted, my knowledge of politics extends only to history texts, but from what I've been hearing over the past few days, Tenjiku stands on the brink of civil war and we're going to get caught right in the middle of it."

Progress, but still didn't explain the siege. Sanzo raised a brow imperiously and silently demanded more details.

Hakkai complied. "The Empress mentioned that before Gyumaoh, there were a great many factions vying for power in this land. Petty kings and lords, each with their own individual territories and fighting forces. Gyumaoh united them and forced them into submission, and although I doubt his motivations had anything to do with altriusm, it was indeed for the good of the realm that he did so. Tenjiku was tearing itself apart. Some of the factions even recognized the disaster in progress, and that revelation swayed their decisions to bow to a central authority."

"Hakkai," Sanzo said impatiently, "that was over five hundred years ago."

"And it has direct relevance to what's going on now," Hakkai replied in his best don't-interrupt-the-teacher voice. "The authority of Gyumaoh's throne, and this included his heirs, was the only authority the petty lords were willing to bow to. He and his Empress transformed Tenjiku from a war-torn patchwork of divided loyalties into a strong nation able to stand up to the constant raids on their borders. So, after the incident with Nataku, even though there were several attempts to take power made by faction heads, not one of them was successful. Half the aristocrats and nearly all of the common people refused to accept any but a legitimate successor. Gyokumen Kyushu only managed to weasel her way in by awakening and manipulating Kougaiji." He paused, a sudden thought occurring.

Sanzo said it for him. "And no one, in the span of hundreds of years, had thought of doing that before she came along."

Hakkai shrugged. "She was there at the time of the sealing. Perhaps she knew something others didn't about how to undo it. Anyway, her reign by proxy quickly turned into a dictatorship and everyone knew it, and the old rumblings of dissent started up again. There had been huge inroads made into the border territories by long time rival powers, and when she did nothing to stop the erosion or reclaim what had been lost, the people living there decided they'd been abandoned and threw their lot in with the new management." He gestured vaguely at the wall to indicate outside. "That's part of the complications. We have, outside right now: armies of local factions that resented Gyokumen's oppression but don't want Kougaiji to take her place, and armies of foreign lords that don't give a damn about Gyokumen and want the throne for themselves. They've been content to fight amongst each other for the moment, but that will last only until they find a common target in the royalists who will surely rally to the cause."

"Let me guess. Those who want Kougaiji or someone of the legitimate line in power."

A nod.

Sanzo mulled all of this over. "Three way war."

Another nod.

"Not our problem."

"Sanzo."

Sanzo matched exasperated looks with the healer. "I mean it. This is none of our concern."

"We are rather physically stuck in the middle of it, if you hadn't noticed," Hakkai pointed out dryly.

"That doesn't mean we need to do anything about it. We came, we completed our mission, we're done. Let Kougaiji and his bunch deal with the rest of this crap."

"They're badly outnumbered."

"Then they should use some common sense and withdraw from a hopeless battle. They don't have to stay here and fight. Let someone else run the country."

_"Civil war,_ Sanzo. Decades of it. Hundreds of years have not changed the attitudes of the people towards the kingship, or else Gyokumen would not have needed Kougaiji."

"We don't owe these people anything. They brought their troubles--"

"—on themselves?" Hakkai pinned him with a Look. "You can't tell me that any of this would have happened if we had not been involved. They have no government because of us."

Sanzo was skeptical.

Hakkai was inexorable. "Gyokumen is dead because of us. Things would be different if there were no existing legitimate claimants to the throne, fine, we could go home and let the factions duke it out amongst themselves over who ought to try for the crown, but that isn't what happened. We changed everything. Kougaiji, Rasetsunyo and Lirin are still alive, and in all probability, only remained that way because we were involved."

"We did not come here to play heroes, goddammit, or to uphold some fucking moral high ground or ideal of justice."

"We died in Heaven doing just that."

The monk stilled. Something that might have been betrayal or even pain flashed across his face.

Hakkai continued quietly, without apology. "Goujun remembers. I ..asked. I thought it might be prudent to know what happened. Better to know and be prepared …if only because of you and Goku …"

"That was …different," Sanzo managed, not wanting to hear anymore. Not wanting to think on it anymore. There was a great pressure on his chest for some reason. "That doesn't have anything to do with this."

Hakkai rose from his chair, and though barely perceptible unless one knew him well (and Sanzo did, to his occasional regret), the set of his shoulders had changed. Sanzo almost expected him to pull out a cigarette, because only Tenpou in one of his deadly serious moods could stalk towards someone like that. He resisted the urge to _fall back, no, lash out, because Konzen and Sanzo had differing opinions on what to do with intruders in their personal space_ as hands settled firmly on his shoulders so he could not look away.

The dark jade of those eyes had not changed. The quiet richness of that voice had not changed. God, man and demon, but his words were and had always been the traps of a master tactician.

_"That_ was challenging the authority of Heaven. _That_ was defying a system that we had no chance of changing, for the sake of two children. Tell me that was not fighting a hopeless battle in the name of a moral high ground. Tell me we did not die in the name of justice." He leaned in a bit, just to threaten, and said very, very softly, "I won't ask you to admit that it was for love."

With no escape, Sanzo simply refused to answer. Or maybe it was that he couldn't answer. His temples were throbbing again in time with his pulse. Pointedly avoiding the youkai's gaze, he kept his eyes on some spot over Hakkai's shoulder and tried to ignore the way the walls kept shifting between white painted and shadowed gray.

"Will you at least look at me when I'm talking to you, Konzen?" Hakkai, or maybe it wasn't Hakkai at all, asked after the silence had gone on too long.

He got a tensing of muscles and a harsh, strained whisper in response. "Don't call me that. And back off."

"Make me."

Of its own accord, Sanzo's fixed glare slipped to meet his eyes, but other than that, nothing.

He tried again. "We risked everything trying to save something worth protecting. We have something here, again, worth protecting. Worth saving."

"I refuse."

"Somehow I don't think you will."

"I am not anyone's savior."

"You were ours, Konzen."

There was a flicker of real anguish this time at the name; old, deep, and raw. _"Don't."_

The brunette was already leaning in, intention unmistakable and his voice a mere whisper of breath. "What are you so afraid of?"

The blond was already tilted up slightly to meet him, defiant and conceding at the same time. Any verbal response, if there even was one, got lost somewhere in the familiar tangle of mouth and tongue. Familiar and unfamiliar, although neither could say why. There were no ink or nicotine stains on the fingers that fell away from bare shoulders, but the gentleness in them was the same when they cupped pale cheeks just now heating to blush. Sanzo never blushed over something so simple as a kiss.

Except perhaps Sanzo wasn't here right now. Or rather, Sanzo wasn't the only one here. His headache was back in full force. So too was the dizziness, the sensation of falling without moving. Whispers or echoes ringing in his ears. Wet paint running, shifting, changing reality into what it wasn't.

Tenpou pulled back far too early for his liking, quiet scholar's voice murmuring something that didn't quite register. He ignored it, ignored the way the Marshal sounded as though he were speaking from somewhere far away, ignored the world that was muted and gray around him. His head hurt and he didn't know why. He was shaking, inexplicably cold, and his chest ached with something that had no name. Tenpou was both too close _alive_ and too far away _alive_, taunting with his warmth, his solidity.

He reached out carefully, hesitantly, to draw the other kami back down to him, because this was Kenren's territory (jealously guarded) and an extended privilege, not a right, but he was so cold, so aching cold, and if Tenpou would only ….

_ah _

Worlds collided in the meeting of their lips. He melted into it, ceding control, because that was how this game was played and he had neither the will nor Kenren's experience to change the rules.

The air trapped between them smelled of sakura.

Tenpou was being awfully subdued today, he noted when they finally parted for breath. Normally at this point he would have been flat on his back with Tenpou's weight pressing him down into the mattress and Tenpou's mouth not allowing much more than a second long window of respite to gasp for oxygen. Perhaps something had happened. If he and Kenren were fighting again, so help him…

"Sanzo!"

His head snapped to the side with the force of the blow. Hakkai stood back, breathing just a little too fast and looking stricken, hand still upraised.

Sanzo blinked. Blinked again. The guilty red mark on his cheek throbbed painfully as the room slowly came back into focus.

"I'm sorry," Hakkai said stupidly.

There was silence as they stared at each other.

"You … just …..you _slapped_ me, you fuck." The monk was incredulous. That wouldn't last. That would give way to overcompensating fury shortly, to hide the growing sense of unease and unraveling control.

Hakkai felt a bit rattled himself. The world had slipped for him as well, just for a moment there, when he'd called Sanzo's name and gotten no response. When violet eyes holding nothing mortal in them met his own, and the person that looked like Sanzo and tasted like Sanzo had touched him, had kissed him with a gentle, almost shy sweetness that Sanzo just didn't possess.

"I don't think," he said slowly after a moment, with great reluctance, "that it was you I struck."

He had the dubious pleasure of seeing the last bit of color wash out of Sanzo's already pale face.

There was more silence as they stopped staring and started avoiding each other's gazes, neither wanting to find a dead lover lingering in violet or green eyes.

"Fuck," Sanzo said finally. It might have been an admission.

"Perhaps you shouldn't be up," the healer suggested carefully, more than a little alarmed and regretting now not shooing Sanzo back to bed when he'd first shown up. Kanzeon had mentioned side effects. Kanzeon had not mentioned mental breakdowns and involuntary regression into past lives.

"Civil war, remember?" Sanzo was angry now. Shaken. Trying to hide it and not succeeding. His knuckles were white where his hands clenched at the edge of the bed.

"They aren't going to attack until Kougaiji's made his intent not to surrender clear. They're expecting his answer by sun zenith. But until then, there's still time to – "

"I don't need time to recover," Sanzo growled. "I'm not sick. Don't treat me like I'm goddamned sick."

"But…"

"Shut up."

Hakkai set his jaw. _"Konzen."_

The monk flinched as though he'd been bitchslapped again. And then glared.

The proving of one's point was a hollow victory in this case, but Hakkai wasn't about to apologize.

"Go to bed."

"Fuck you."

"Given what just happened, I believe it was the other way around. Although Goujun never mentioned any of that so I can't be quite sure."

Sanzo presented him with his best Eat Shit and Die glare. Hakkai in doctor mode was immune.

"If you won't go willingly, I'll knock you out."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me." The healer was deadly serious. "This is not something I can fix, Sanzo, and evidently a lot more serious than any of us knew."

"I'm fine."

"You're not. The mind is infinitely more delicate than the physical body. Any false move, any unnecessary stress, any further …incidents….I don't know what might happen. We have only what Kanzeon said to go on, and that was for you to stay asleep."

"Tell me how I'm to avoid unnecessary stress with a war breaking out over our heads."

Hakkai regretted bringing up that whole thing at all. "As you said, it's not our problem."

The monk wasn't going to let him off that easily. "And the people here?" he asked scathingly. "And peace? Your 'something worth saving?'"

"Are all important. But not, at the moment, more important."

"Selfish idiot," Sanzo snapped; paradoxically angry, worried, and maybe possibly oh-let's-be-honest-since-no-one-else-will-ever-know, a tiny bit flattered.

"Yes," agreed the genocide unflinchingly.

"Do something moronic and I'll kill you." Read: 'do –anything- in the interest of protecting me and I'll kill you.' Sanzo was all too aware of what Hakkai was capable of in the interest of protecting someone.

A mass murderer's smile shouldn't look so harmless.

"Che." Sanzo got up and headed for the door. This discussion was going nowhere. More than that, the room was too small. Too hot, too full of Hakkai's scent and Hakkai's concern and Hakkai's damnable perception. He needed space to breathe.

Hakkai had a parting shot ready, however, and it was delivered with a bland, pleasant tone that only the brunette could achieve while giving what was effectively an order (or emotional blackmail). "I trust you're not going anywhere except back to Goku. I'm sure he isn't dealing well with this without you."

Dead in the black. Sanzo stiffened, then snarled and stalked out into the hallway, nearly hitting Goujun with the door as it banged open.

The Dragon King fixed Sanzo with an evil look, but otherwise offered no comment.

"Sanzo?" Hakkai came to the doorway.

Sanzo paused in the corridor, not turning around. "You said noon. So I'll have a decision at noon."

"You don't have to--- "

"I do. And I will."

"Fine." The healer gave up. "And?"

"And what?"

"And in the meantime…?" One could almost imagine the ball of paralyzing chi energy being readied.

Sanzo gritted his teeth and told Hakkai what he wanted to hear. "And in the meantime, I'll be with Goku."

"Resting."

"Yes."

_"Actually_ resting."

"….yes."

"Not brooding or poking at the memories."

_"Yes,_ Hakkai, for fuck's sake."

"Forgive my skepticism, but you've proven a very unreliable patient."

Sanzo said something unkind that was very likely anatomically impossible. Not loud enough for Hakkai to hear, however.

Goujun heard it. Muttered a quiet "Excuse me," to Hakkai, and then shut the door in the man's face so that he and Sanzo might be 'alone' in the hallway.

A very ominous silence came from behind the solid wood frame before Hakkai's voice grumbled something unkind and very likely anatomically impossible (maybe he had heard Sanzo after all) and moved off.

Goujun turned to face the monk, who was watching all of this with high suspicion.

"What?" Sanzo growled, feeling too much like crap to even attempt civility. "Don't tell me you're going to get on my case on his behalf."

"I would never presume to order around a member of the Lotus family," Goujun replied coldly.

"Good. Then sod off." He started to turn his back.

"Konzen Douji."

Sanzo whirled, ready to lash out at the use of _that name,_ but Goujun's next words stopped him cold.

"I have a message for you." The Dragon King's unreadable ruby eyes bored into him. "From the Merciful Goddess."

"……….."

"Your Journey is not yet over. The true nightmare of the Minus Wave is only just beginning. So don't get lazy." Goujun even managed to emulate Kanzeon's superior, I-know-something-you-don't-and-you-can't-do-anything-about-it tone.

"Is that it?" Sanzo fought for calm.

"That's it."

"Ch.' Damn hag." The monk spun on his heel and stalked off. Goujun watched him go, making no move to follow.

Which was a good thing, because as soon as Sanzo rounded a corner and was safely out of earshot, his treacherous body betrayed him, and he staggered sideways into the wall.

_Goddamn._ The pain in his head was killing him. Begun the moment Hakkai had confronted him with a Marshal of Heaven's implacable resolution, the migraine had continued to build into the stabbing agony it was now. One hand clutched at his forehead, the other scrabbling uselessly over stone and mortar, and he finally resorted to putting his back to the wall and sinking down along it before his knees gave out from under him.

His vision was doing strange melting things again. Vertigo washed over him, and he wondered if he was going to pass out again as the hallway bucked and swam without moving. The ringing in his ears was louder, deafening, and he tried to block out the sounds with his fists but –

-- it wouldn't stop make it stop –

_"Konzen."_

Voices. He could hear voices in the shadows of the hallway. Hushed murmurs, some distant and echoing, some as close and intimate as though the speaker were skin to skin with him. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see, not wanting the invasion, not wanting the déjà vu, but there were images to accompany the voices and he knew all of them.

A smile, a scream, a whispered name in the dark. Glasses. Green eyes. A tender press of fingers, a stolen sword. Black leather, black hair, a black ruffian's grin. The unguarded expression that lingered, just for a moment, after Tenpou had turned away. A room with white walls. A soldier's rigid formality.

He would have been cursing, but his breath came too short for it. The beats of pain came too close together, rushing in his blood and thundering with his pulse. Faster. Harder. The whispers rose around him, and he heard his own voice answer back, but it couldn't have been him because he had no breath to speak nor strength to force the words …

Someone called his name --

_-- and he opened his eyes. _

The world existed in shades of gray. Funny, how different everything looked, when nothing had in fact changed. He was the one who had changed.

Heaven's walls would never be white to him again. They were red, and the floor was red, and all through it flowed rivers of shadow.

Tenpou lay in one of these, the darkness stealing softly across his too pale skin, across the burned and bloody remains of his labcoat, across the scarlet gleaming sword still gripped loosely in one hand.

He fell to his knees. All the breath seemed to rush out of him at once, but the exhalation of a name was barely above a fainting whisper.

It wasn't the blood, although there was too much of that. It wasn't the stillness of the body, or the silence unbroken by the gasping breath of a living creature. More than anything else, it was the crack in the glasses, the tiny spiderwebbing line that ran through the left lens, that told him Tenpou was dead.

"Bastard." He didn't recognize his own voice, choked and ragged. "You…..bastard. How could you— " He clutched at the dead kami's shoulders, bent double with the desperation of it all. "You promised me ….you …."

Alone. He was alone. Tenpou had promised him, but he was alone and they were all going to die and –

He was cursing, using words he didn't even know the meanings of to damn Tenpou, to berate him for breaking his word, for being so inconsiderate, for making Kenren worry, for having the sheer audacity to do something stupid like this when they were people who needed him.

Thus occupied, he was not prepared for the 'corpse' to ask, quite mildly, if Konzen would mind not shaking him like that.

Shocked violet eyes shot open to meet tired green ones. Tenpou might have been smiling ruefully, painfully, but the expression faded quickly into one of quiet astonishment.

The hand that lifted to his face was very gentle, as incredulous and disbelieving as the words were. "Are you crying?"

He tried to muster the ire to say something scalding (in negative, of course), but somewhere between thought and action the words went dead, and when he opened his mouth it was to receive Tenpou's. Proof of life and all that. It was something to hold onto, when the world was ending around them in blood and fire and misery.

When Kenren finally found them, staggering like a drunk and laughing just a tad hysterically at the ridiculous amount of PAIN his body kept broadcasting to his senses, he stopped. Stared. Took a moment to process what he was seeing and cracked a smart remark about cheating wives and missed opportunities for voyeurism. (He didn't say anything about missed opportunities for participation, because he hadn't. Tenpou was devious, and Konzen made an amiable drunk, and far be it from Kenren to reject a miracle landing in his lap.)

Then he fell quite gracelessly on his face.

He was already smiling when he came back, looking up into two worried faces and laughing at the sheer lunacy of everything. The uniform he wore was more red than black.

"You're both idiots," Konzen informed them flatly, which only set Kenren off again and brought a wry twist to Tenpou's mouth.

"But… it's good company, ne?" The General hauled himself up with a wince and slung an arm around Tenpou's shoulders, closing his eyes and burying his face in the kami's neck to hide the shudders as a fresh tide of crimson spilled over futile bandages. "Sorry," he mumbled when he could breathe again, sheepish over Konzen's horrified expression.

There was an admission about the severity of his wounds in that apology. Kenren rarely apologized (and meant it, anyway) because that indicated he had done something he actually regretted. Tenpou knew what it meant. Konzen did as well, though he tried very hard to misunderstand.

Gods do not know death. Soldiers understand it shadows their every move. All living things run, hide, and shrink from it as the greatest unknown.

Konzen held onto them both when it came for him, promising back what they pledged to him, and did not flinch at the end because they were together, would stay that way, and they would find each other again when the darkness receded. They had sworn it on too many levels to doubt each other.

But he had found Goku first.

Someone called his name –

-- and he opened his eyes.

The visions were gone. The voices in his head were gone. He lay slumped on his side in the dark, cheek against the cool stone floor, staring uncomprehendingly at the closed door directly opposite him across the room.

Relief hit him so hard it stole his breath. A dream. Just a …

Well, not a dream. A memory. And not one of Goku's either, but Konzen's. His own and not his own at the same time. One he rather wished never to experience again, as the phantom pain of fatal wounds was slow to fade. The phantom grief of believing someone he trusted to be dead was even slower.

He sat up gingerly when he had a little better control of himself. Only belatedly did he recognize the telltale ache in his temples, and only belatedly did fingertips rise to dazedly trace the trail of wet down his cheek. Tears. Tears shed in another life, for another's loss.

Irrationally furious, he scrubbed them away. Whoever the hell Konzen had been, he was a bad influence. Weak, pathetic, easily manipulated by those who knew him best. On his knees in a pool of blood and leaning over a corpse, not even aware that he was crying silently. A child's weakness, for all that the idiot was supposed to have been a god. Kouryuu's weakness.

But Kouryuu had survived and Konzen had not. And five hundred years later, Genjyo Sanzo had taken up Konzen's failed guardianship of a noisy, annoying monkey. Five hundred years later, he'd been the one to find all of them and bring them back together.

He was nothing like Konzen.

Removing the heel of his palm where it had been jammed against his left eye, the monk stopped thinking about a dead man when he got his first good look at his surroundings.

He was in a room, shadow painted and silent. Spacious. The ceiling lost in darkness overhead. A window to his right provided some dull illumination, but he could see neither moon nor stars. A single closed door faced him.

This was not where he'd been. This wasn't what he remembered before passing out or whatever had just happened. That hallway had no doors or rooms, only windows until further down. His gaze darted and found nothing recognizable. Had he been sleepwalking during the delusions? Or was he still dreaming, caught in the middle of another memory without knowing?

The door looked to be the only way in or out of the room. He didn't remember going through a door.

There was nothing to be done for it. He could either try the window or the door, and he already knew which he'd prefer to use as his exit. This castle wasn't as high as Houtou but it was still a damn long way to the ground and he wasn't much up to scaling tower walls right now.

Standing up was an ordeal, he was ashamed to discover. Clawing himself upright like a cripple, he leaned heavily against the wall for support and waited for his breath to return to normal. This weakness had to stop. The headache wasn't going to go away and he would just have to accept that, but the physical weakness that made him pant and shake after any sort of activity like a man in the grip of fever had to stop.

God DAMN that stupid hag and the monkey for fucking up his mind like this.

Silently and liberally applying terms of 'endearment' to their meddling behinds, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to move forward, ignoring the way that every step set his head to pounding, ignoring the way the door kept blurring in and out of focus.

He stopped when he heard the noise.

_Shffft_

For a brief moment he thought he'd only imagined it. He stilled, cocking his head. It came again.

_Shffft_

Something was moving on the other side of the door. Something that made quiet, barely audible sounds like a low murmuring, or maybe fabric shifting.

Survival instinct told him to backpedal and do it in a hurry. He had no idea what lay beyond the thin barricade of wood without any sense of youkai aura, but Genjyo Sanzo hadn't lived this long by taking stupid risks (well, they weren't stupid risks in his mind, anyway). Very slowly, noiselessly, he reached down for …

… his very conveniently missing gun.

This was beyond stupid. Really.

He made a mental note to talk to someone about getting an indestructible weapon, preferably one of divine origin.

Just as soon as he got out of this mess.

_Shfft_

There was nowhere to retreat to, logically, if he wanted out he'd have to use the available exits. Even if that meant letting ….whatever it was, in, or having to fight to get past it.

A cautious step forward. The murmuring grew louder, as if in response. Scrabbling sounds--

_like fingers scratching at the door _

--and then, movement. There at the space between the ground and the bottom of the door. Fuck.

It was the only way in or out. There was no other choice, unless he wanted to climb out the window. He told his sense of equilibrium very sternly to quit going ballistic and, not quite holding his breath, reached out for the handle –

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you. You're not ready yet."

_-- and someone called his name, and he opened his eyes._

He was back in the hallway. Slumped over on his side in the dark, cheek against the cool stone floor, staring uncomprehendingly at the blank wall directly opposite him. No door. No scratching noises. No nothing.

What. The. Hell.

This had to stop. He had to stop hallucinating, or dreaming, or remembering, or whatever it was that was causing him to see these things that weren't real. It was pathetic, carrying on like this. Undignified. Degrading. Irritating. Quite possibly dangerous if it persisted. And absolutely, utterly out of the question. Genjyo Sanzo was not honestly going to be expected to try and live with what amounted to a narcoleptic condition, that made him randomly pass out in hallways to accommodate hallucinations, and nightmares, and other peoples' goddamn angst just because some fucker up in Heaven thought it would be cute for Goku to have the rest of his brain back.

What kind of reward system was that anyway? They do Heaven's dirty work, succeed against impossible odds, and the only thing they get in return was the return of an idiot's memories which only made everyone suffer more?

He should have let Homura destroy Heaven. Except for the fact that any new world created by a cretin would inevitably turn out as bad as the one it was supposed to be replacing.

Sitting up, when he got around to it, was an adventure in itself. Standing up even more of one as he cursed and snarled and dragged himself up, again (again?) having to hold onto the wall for support. The shaky weakness remained, but the headache precursor to hallucination thing seemed to have given up pulsing like war drums behind his temples, satisfied that it already inflicted as much damage to his sanity (not to mention his pride) as possible for the moment. No voices either, just blessed silence in his brain.

Still he quivered with adrenaline and battle tension. His body, at least, completely convinced that it had just escaped a brush with death, even if the door and the thing beyond it had been nothing more than a figment of his imagination. Nothing more than a dream.

And it had been. Just a dream.

……hadn't it?

He eyed the blank wall with extreme suspicion.

"You wouldn't think it would make such a difference."

Sanzo pretended he hadn't just nearly bitten through his tongue restraining an indignified yelp.

Very seriously entertaining the notion that he was still asleep, the blond turned his head slowly to eye the speaker not three feet away from him. Whose presence he had, somehow, completely not noticed.

Ko Shuyin leaned against the wall casually, as if he'd merely been waiting for Sanzo to acknowledge him rather than waiting for Sanzo to wake up from a hallucination. Gold eyes fixed on the point on the opposite wall where the door would have been. As if he had seen. As if he knew.

"Memory, I mean," he added unnecessarily when Sanzo didn't respond.

Sanzo was too busy being silently thankful that it wasn't Hakkai who'd found him sprawled on his face in the hallway, because that would've proven Hakkai Right and when Hakkai was Right he never let a body forget it. Ever.

"I'm sorry it had to come back to you like this," the War God was saying, almost nervously. "I'm sure it feels overwhelming at times…"

"What was behind that door?" Sanzo interrupted bluntly, putting two and two together and getting another unanswered question that, finally, someone was at hand to force an answer out of. It had been Shuyin's voice he'd heard telling him not to try the handle in his 'dream.'

If it had been a dream.

"What door?" The _itan's_ tone was just a little too light, and Sanzo didn't buy the innocent act for a second.

"Cut the crap. You know what door. What was behind it?"

Heretic eyes caught the moonlight as the other shifted uncomfortably, for a moment reflecting gold like a tiger's. Sanzo wondered irrelevantly why he'd never seen Goku's do the same. More relevantly wondered why the man was stalling.

"It isn't for you, nikkou," the ex-Toushin Taishi said quietly, after a moment of silence. "Not yet. Perhaps not ever."

That damn nickname again. Combined with the irritation of the non-answer to his question, his general aching feeling of unwellness, and the whole fucked up mess that was his head right now; Sanzo's last nerve snapped. "And why the hell do you keep calling me that! Do I _know_ you?"

Shuyin gave him a long, searching look. "Do you?"

Sanzo opened his mouth, automatic denial stinging on his lips. Shut it when he found he couldn't give voice to that denial.

He wasn't sure. Logic was telling him that he'd never seen the asshole before in his entire life, and even Konzen's or Goku's memories or whatever the hell they were told him the same, though that was hardly reliable. But something else still told him that saying "no" was the wrong answer.

And he remembered his own accusation, remembered that it had felt real and Shuyin's reaction to it had been real. He just didn't know _why._

"Who are you?" he asked instead, warily.

He got an apologetic smile that should have been warning enough for its resemblance to Hakkai's. But Sanzo wasn't up to par with his warning instincts at the moment. He missed the tiny pfft of light around a triple petal symbol nearly obscured by auburn bangs. He missed the subtle shift of air as the ambient energy stirred.

He did not miss the way meeting Shuyin's gaze directly made him suddenly very tired, and very incapable of staying upright any longer. The hallway tilted and he realized he was falling, the same as earlier and again he couldn't do anything about it but curse, his own voice distant and fuzzy, as the asshole who'd just somehow tricked him caught him easily.

"Bastard…."

"You always say that," Shuyin remarked unconcernedly before sweeping the semi-conscious (and fading rapidly) monk up fully into his arms. Sanzo's weight was almost pathetically negligible to the strength of an _itan._ "Old habit, just like this one, I guess."

"What …are you …babbling about?" The words were so weak they didn't even come out as defensive, much less furious. For that matter, he found himself unable even to work up a decent level of alarm about his position. Being at the mercy of a stranger, and a very powerful one to have dealt so easily with the Seiten Taisei, should have had all his insides screaming danger and distrust.

It didn't.

It was comfortable, Shuyin's voice and his touch, though he couldn't say how or why. Comfortable and Familiar, not familiar but Familiar, tying back into his fucked up head and its new secrets to the point where he wanted to scream in frustration, because every goddamn weird thing that happened to him was started to feel like this. Familiar. Déjà vu didn't even come close to describing it. Knowing people he didn't know. Relating to incidents that hadn't happened. Feeling what he shouldn't feel, because it wasn't him it hadn't been him…

Familiar. His temple resting against a broad armored _(armored?)_ shoulder. Strength he couldn't even imagine gentled to hold him up, to protect him when he couldn't protect himself. Blue sky and falling leaves above, fading into black when he let his eyes slide closed, and a voice above his head telling him to go back to sleep.

Genjyo Sanzo did, but not without a final muttered death threat concerning manipulative bastards.

Shuyin's low, rich chuckle in response was the last thing he heard.


	9. Episode 9: Shiroi Yami no Naka

THE CRUSH, PART NINE (zomg!)

Don't Look Back Again

In another part of the castle, there were heated arguments going on over a table covered with maps and battle plans. Yelling, gesticulating, a little inarticulate fury and frustration. Some despair, a lot of frustration.

And a great deal of discipline, as Yaone, Doku, and Ginsei (a recently promoted Temporary Captain of the Guard while his commander was away) all managed not to flinch when the air in the room turned hazy and superheated, a precursor to the firestorm about to erupt between mother and son.

Familial spats amongst the Imperial House were really, really spectacular. So was the collateral damage involved.

The basic gist of the argument was this:

1.) There was a huge fucking army outside the castle waiting to slaughter/take-into-custody-and-then-slaughter all inhabitants come high noon.

2.) They, meaning the Kou-tachi and Rasetsunyo and the surviving soldiers and everyone, equaled in total less than thirty people, including those who were certainly not obligated/able to do any fighting. And while a castle might be successfully defended with less than thirty people for a few days, it was not going to outlast a full scale siege.

3.) Some clever enemy mage (or fifty) had set up a negation barrier to keep anyone else from escaping by teleport or otherwise magical means, which in this case meant 'at all.'

4.) There were precious few options left open to them, and only one certainty. It was going to take a miracle to save them now.

5.) Against all odds they _had_ a miracle, in the form of Rasetsunyo's pet War God. Slaughtering armies of belligerent youkai was his professional career.

6.) He had conveniently refused to fight.

Kougaiji was angry. Furious, even. Bad enough the stranger with the weird aura suddenly waltzing into their lives, blithely informing everyone that Rasetsunyo had been cheating on her husband and that Kougaiji was _his_ son instead of Gyumaoh's, sorry there kid, didn't mean to leave you, you know, _laboring under illusions for the majority of your bloody life or anything,_ can't give you any good explanation for the extended absence either, and look, here, there's a crisis situation, it's a shame I can't help you out with it.

That was all bad enough. But the salt in the wound was that his mother was actually supporting the infuriating demi-deity. Even the gods had rules, she said, and refused to give a better explanation for Shuyin's illogical refusal of aid than that.

Fuming, he'd pointed out that the gods had rules about not fraternizing with mortals too, especially youkai women, especially _married_ youkai women, and rules about not siring children upon them, and not covering it up for 500+ years, and not showing up out of the blue to make announcements about heritage and then sitting back to watch the chaos without the slightest inclination to take responsibility for any of it. It would be a shame for the heretic to break such a tradition of _not_ following rules now, wouldn't it?

Rasetsunyo had given him the We Are Not Discussing This Now look and snapped that Shuyin was not his concern.

Kougaiji had snapped back how, exactly, Shuyin was not his concern.

Someone accused someone of not having their priorities straight.

Someone accused someone of having lied to them since they day they'd been born.

It was at this point that the conversation had degenerated into a screaming fit that had probably been five hundred years and three days overdue.

In the privacy of his own mind, Doku thought it might have been funny under other circumstances. Here they were on the brink of what was going to be the shortest, most one sided war in history, and their fearless leader was having paternal authority and abandonment issues.

But there was reason for this little hissy fit, ample reason. Doku and Yaone knew it. The new Temporary Captain and most of the guards and Chen, if he'd been there, knew it. Everyone had their breaking point. It was truly a minor miracle that their Prince hadn't snapped sooner.

The months leading up to Gyumaoh's resurrection had, ironically (or perhaps karmically), been as stressful for Kougaiji as they'd been for Sanzo. Theft of a certain Westerner's pendant had accelerated the experiments to the point where the scientists no longer needed to use Lirin, and for that matter Kougaiji, although neither of them had known at the time what Gyokumen had been planning for her dear daughter and son-in-law. All of them tried not to think of what they'd found digging through the wreckage of the lab just a day ago. Design drawings, half built containment tanks, wires and cables and pentagrams created for the purpose of turning Lirin and possibly Kougaiji himself into components of the experiment. Living, breathing batteries locked in tanks.

When Gyuomaoh had been awakened, after all, there would be no further need for insubordinate and obsolete heirs.

The pendant made all that living battery stuff moot. What it didn't make moot was the obsolete heir part. So for the second time in his ridiculously fucked up existence, Kougaiji had found himself a virtual prisoner in the castle that was his by birthright.

He had fought, that first time, when the castle came under assault by Heaven's armies. The memories were blurred from time and magic overload, but he remembered battle. He remembered desperation, red fury bloodying his vision and his claws, the stinging of energies that no mortal could hope to control invading his senses, and a cold, cold fear in the pit of his stomach. He remembered futility. He didn't remember how it ended.

Only that it had ended, badly, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Helplessness was worse than the fear. Helplessness was worse than anything. So he fought again against his fate.

There were casualties, this time. Injuries that would have been casualties if only luck, or maybe ill luck, hadn't been involved. Gyokumen with a bloody wound on her throat that she covered with fabric and high collars. Nii with his left arm nearly torn off. Members of Gyokumen's personal guard with broken ribs and backs and necks. All or nothing. Doku and Yaone at his side, trailing in his wake, pulled along inexorably by the force of his desperation.

They had watched him fall, and followed him down screaming.

Waking up in the medical ward after the passage of an uncertain number of days was becoming a common occurrence. That had almost been normal, to their horror. Waking up to Kougaiji with bandages wrapped over his forehead and his eyes blank was not normal, but familiar. Nii's smirk was familiar. He said they'd fixed the process that'd gone wrong the first time. He said they'd fixed everything. They hadn't, of course. They'd only made things worse in an already stressed to the breaking point psyche.

The barcoding procedure worked because it compartmentalized what made up a person's behavior. Certain emotions and ideas were separated from each other. Nii had gone into Kougaiji's head with that horrid little smirk of his that cut sharper than any of his scalpels, and divided what he found there into neat sections. He had created the Other. It looked like Kougaiji, spoke with his voice and moved with his body, but It was not the person Doku and Yaone had sworn their lives to. It was something else.

And they had precious little hope that they'd be able to get rid of It the second time around.

This time, though, It didn't take over completely. It _shared._ They didn't know if it was because Kougaiji was stronger, or the Other weaker, or if by some unholy accident, the two could somehow unconsciously compromise. Unconsciously, because Kougaiji appeared not to remember what happened when his gaze went fixed and his voice turned to ice, or even that it happened to him at all. He would come back to himself and ask, with genuine puzzlement, why Doku and Yaone were staring at him as though they'd seen a ghost.

They were restricted to the castle grounds on pretext of injuries, which everyone knew would continue long after their injuries had healed. Kougaiji remembered what he'd tried to do and guilt tore at him that he'd failed, that he'd allowed his temper to finally peak and launched such an ill planned, ill fated offensive. The Other, if It had an opinion on enforced captivity, kept such things to Itself. On the surface It appeared to be perfectly loyal to Gyokumen. And Gyokumen was very, very, very tired of insurrection. She needed the Prince not as a sutra hunter or subordinate, but as a symbol for the people until his father returned. And the Other would do for public appearances. Kougaiji she ordered confined as a prisoner in state. The bars were invisible, the jail cell covered in silk and tapestries, but it was a prison nonetheless.

It had all seemed so very hopeless at the time. So very …final. They had all wondered, in the back of their minds, in the darkest depths of insecurity and fear, what might happen to them eventually in a worst case scenario. Happy endings were for fairy tales. They knew the risks, the precariousness of their positions. And now this was the reality and it was cruel, because they were not even given the chance to escape watching the horrible, inevitable conclusion. They were trapped with no way out. They had nothing left.  
And then, one day, things changed. One day, the Other spoke.

They had been in the medical ward, they being the Kou-tachi minus Lirin, along with Nii, Hwan, and some of the other scientists. Doku didn't remember what they'd been talking about. That part wasn't important. The important part was that Kougaiji had stopped mid sentence as if he'd been struck dumb, and shivered oddly, and then It _came forward._ Its flat, cold gaze had focused, Its flat, cold voice had broken the silence that normally accompanied Its manifestation.

It had looked at Nii and asked, very quietly and deliberately, if he was tired of waiting for the checkmate. And Nii, his cigarette dipping dangerously between suddenly slack lips, had stared back at the Other as if the bizarre question had meant something.

Doku and Yaone had discussed it, later. They'd never figured out any satisfactory explanation. Kougaiji didn't know about it, _couldn't_ know about it, because he didn't or couldn't acknowledge the existence of the Other, and you could hardly interrogate one half of a personality about why the other half had done something.

That very day Nii had told Gyokumen Kyushu in no uncertain terms that the Maten sutra was required for the experiments. That very day Gyokumen, quite against her earlier commands, had ordered Kougaiji and Doku and Yaone and even Lirin, the old hands, to seek out Genjyo Sanzo and bring back his sutra.

Sanzo and his convenient bullets had done the rest. Neither the ikkou nor Rasetsunyo had been informed of the mysterious circumstances surrounding Kougaiji's last mission, which by all rights should never have been ordered in the first place (not because Doku and Yaone had no intention of informing everyone, just, they hadn't yet figured out what they were going to say yet). It made no sense. It made absolutely no sense, and the two people they might have asked about it were conveniently unavailable. The Other hadn't been seen since Its enigmatic conversation with Nii, and Doku's sword had taken care of the good doctor during the castle assault.

Everything had clicked just a little too neatly in place. The crisis situation in Tenjiku resolved in a single day, Gyumaoh dead, Gyokumen dead, Rasetsunyo free, the Kou-tachi free and the ikkou completing their three year mission, Seiten sutra recovered, no more resurrection experiments, with alarming ease. Doku and Yaone hadn't argued with it as events unfolded, but looking back now everything seemed a bit surreal.

It was almost as if someone had planned this out. Almost as if someone had taken into account all the little variables, all the certainties of their realities, both the Kou-tachi's and the Sanzo-ikkou's, like inevitable failure and death and despair, and then found a loophole through the whole mess to an improbably future on the other side where they'd all somehow survived. Not that all of them weren't grateful, of course. Not that Yaone hadn't sobbed with relief into her pillows the first night, before the army arrived. Not that Doku hadn't spent a significant amount of time every day fervently thanking whatever gods happened to listen to the prayers of incestuous matricides who deserted their younger brothers. But he still couldn't get over the feeling that the axe was still in the air, waiting to fall (the army outside of course lent a lot of weight to this theory)  
He couldn't get over the feeling whenever he thought about the Other and how It _never_ had stayed dormant for this long before, or watched Shuyin's old eyes slide over his claimed only son with what might have been buried pain, or remembered the look of absolute shock on Nii's face. It was a tiny, niggling thing, like a pebble in one's shoe, or the barest prickling of a chill breeze, miniscule but indismissable.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, he'd missed something vitally important. It had to do with Kougaiji, he was certain. It had to do with the Other. It had to do with Nii, and Rasetsunyo, and Shuyin, and the Sanzo-ikkou, and with the army outside and the Merciful Goddess and Gyumaoh and the man who owned the pendant and with Yaone and with himself and he _didn't know what it was._

Kou continued arguing with Rasetsunyo, a feat that one wouldn't have believed him capable of if they'd seen him sobbing over her frozen pillar only a few days before. Yaone fidgeted, torn between wanting to side with her righteously furious master and smacking him upside the head for getting distracted by tangents in a crisis. Ginsei was pale and shaking, certain that he was about to become crispy fried Temporary Captain of the Guard any moment now, and wondering if running screaming for the exit or fainting in terror might get him demoted back to a safer rank. Doku was giving himself a headache trying to figure out what was wrong with this picture.

At least they were having it out, the kappa noted with some resignation. The timing was unfortunate, but it was probably better to fight about it and get everything out in the open instead of bottling up all the resentment and confusion and brooding over it and letting it fester the way ….

….the way Kougaiji normally did. The way Kougaiji had been doing for years.

Doku's expression gave up trying to cover the gamut of emotions currently flickering through his brain. Shock, speculation, confusion and suspicion (among other things) did not go well together.

Fortunately, his mouth could work independently of his head. While trying to puzzle out the meaning behind his revelation, as well as pinpoint precisely what his revelation _was,_ he stopped the argument cold with a single word.

"Um."

He noted with distraction the temperature of the immediate air around him jump five degrees as two identical purple glares snapped to him.

"Um," he persisted undaunted. "I think we're forgetting the purpose of this meeting. Obviously we're outnumbered. Obviously Ko-san would be a great help in overcoming that deficiency. But we're not out to win this battle, are we? All we need to do is hold the castle until Chen returns."

"If Chen returns," Ginsei muttered under his breath, and then yelped. Yaone smiled fixedly as she removed her heel from his instep.

The negation barrier that barred teleports had only gone up after the 'escape' of four youkai soldiers (Chen and two guards, and another who wasn't a soldier at all) from the impending warzone on the back of the last long distance dragon. Most of the construct beasts had vanished during the commotion, being simple creatures but also simple creatures very sensitive to the workings of magic, and they'd been scared senseless or even de-activated by the energies involved in Gyumaoh's revival. It was luck, or coincidence, or suspiciously extreme convenience that Kougaiji's favorite mount, Liatris, had been discovered still hanging around the area. Liat was something of an anomaly amongst her kind, behaving the closest to a living, sentient creature complete with temper and eccentricities, which was why Kougaiji had taken to her in the first place.

Anyway, she was an escape route for two or three people, a one way trip to the horizon. The attacking army might be taken by surprise by an aerial dash for freedom, but once it had happened they'd know to watch for and guard against it. Lirin had thrown a positively unholy tantrum when she'd been informed that she had the first ticket to the dubious safety of somewhere else, but Kougaiji had threatened her with the old Making Mature Decisions shtick. Chen and two others soldiers were going with her. They were also going to try and extort some of the closest Lords into mustering a royalist army. It was a long shot, but stranger things had happened in the history of armed warfare, and worked.

Kougaiji had confessed some guilt about not offering the escape chance to technical noncombatants like the Sanzo-ikkou. However, Hakkai had informed him in no uncertain terms that Sanzo and Goku traveling anywhere in their comatose states was out of the question. Plus, Hakkai seemed to be taking a healthy interest in the whole political procedure, and Kougaiji wasn't stupid enough to deliberately alienate any desperately needed potential allies by demanding that they pack up and shove off. If anyone could convince Sanzo that staying to fight was the Right Thing To Do, Hakkai could.

But Ginsei was right. No matter who they did or didn't convince to help fight from inside the castle, it would be Chen's ability to persuade the minor Lords to come to their rescue with an army that had the better chance of actually saving their butts.

Kougaiji was unwilling to let his argument go. And unhappy about Doku attempting to interrupt.

"This is still all his fault."

"And so what if it is?" Doku heard himself demanding. "So he's guilty. All of us are guilty. You could have tried to take Gyumaoh's throne before Heaven got pissed enough to knock him off it. Rasetsunyo could have refused to marry him. Yaone or I or you could have murdered or tried to murder Gyokumen at any point, or Nii, or sabotaged the experiments, or something."

Kougaiji glared at him. "Doku…"

"We've all fucked up, Kou. You can't assign all the blame to him— "

_"Oh yes I can."_

Doku actually took a step back. Kougaiji's fists were clenched, his shoulders granite with tension, but his voice was soft and level when he spoke.

"What kind of deus ex machina," he continued, quietly furious, "won't even lift a finger to save his own family?"

He had only a second for the danger to register before Rasetsunyo's fire charged fist crashed into his cheek, snapped his head to the side and nearly sending him to the floor. The Empress had no use for slapping idiots.

"You child," she hissed, livid and trembling with rage. "You miserable, spineless child. Is that what you want of him? Is that why you think you hate him?"

Kougaiji didn't say anything, one hand going to his split lip. His glare was answer enough.

"How _dare_ you expect that, out of him or anyone," she raged, well beyond fury and into the realm of nuclear. "You are a Prince of Tenjiku, not some … some …helpless abused barwench who dreams of being miraculously rescued! I raised you to be a leader and protector of your people." Her finger stabbed at him, and then at the window. "_They_ are the ones out there right now needing rescue, _they_ are the ones out there right now needing guidance, and they are the ones who need you to give them hope. How dare you whine to me about the irresponsibilities of your father when you're doing the _same damn thing."_

Kougaiji's eyes, narrowed in anger, suddenly went blank, and a chill rushed down Doku's spine at the too familiar sight of it. Shit on a stick, if Kou lost it here and now, in front of Rasetsunyo and Ginsei ….

The kappa opened his mouth to say something, anything, to forestall imminent disaster, but someone else beat him to the punch.

"You're right," the Other said suddenly, speaking with Kougaiji's voice. Its flat, dead eyes fixed on Rasetsunyo. "You're right. I have been…remiss, in my own duties. I am in no position to place blame on others."

The Empress eyed him suspiciously, which was a good thing, because if she'd looked up, she'd have seen both Doku and Yaone turning fascinating shades of sickly white. Ginsei was cowering against the wall, having given up on all pretense of bravado in face of impending pyrokinetic showdown.

The Other returned Rasetsunyo's searching glance impassively, apparently not having anything more to add. In this instance, It might have been lucky that Its natural expression was a poker face.

"Well then," she said finally, something warring behind her eyes. "If we're done with this little argument…."

"Hardly done," the Other cut in smoothly, prompting a tightening of her mouth. "But for the moment …"

"Paused, then." There was distaste in her statement.

"Paused. Yes."

"Fine. Then let's get on with this." She turned half away from him, towards the map covered table. "We have a war to plan."

And just like that, Kougaiji was back, blinking rapidly as though to clear something from his vision, and momentary confusion swept across his expression like clouds across a sky. Doku made an aborted move towards him, catching himself at the last second before the Empress noticed.

"Kougaiji?" Rasetsunyo was looking back at her son, impatience in her stance.

"Paused," the Prince muttered, shaking his head slightly, and then looked up to wave off Yaone's concerned step forward. "Yes. Of course. We don't have time for distractions right now." And he went to his mother's side at the table without any further hesitation.

Ginsei breathed a distinct sigh of relief, which might have been funny under other circumstances. Yaone and Doku exchanged a Look and a silent, coded conversation. There was something very, very, very weird going on with all this.

An uncomfortable silence fell until Kougaiji said the kappa's name a second later, making him jump.

"Dokugaku, will you go and see if Sanzo's finished speaking with Hakkai yet?" Kougaiji asked distractedly, seemingly unaware of Rasetsunyo's measuring gaze on him while she ostensibly looked over his shoulder at the map in front of him. "He ought to be here for this, if he's recovered sufficiently."

"He seemed lucid enough when I saw him earlier," Rasetsunyo offered, albeit warily. Kougaiji nodded absently, as if he had not just been screaming at the top of his lungs at her for the better part of an hour.

Something very weird indeed.

Yaone decided she'd had about enough of it. She squared her shoulders. "My lord, may I accompany Dokugakuji?"

Kougaiji blinked at the request, and then managed a brief smile. "Of course. I apologize for keeping you three locked up in here listening to us bicker."

She bowed graciously. "Not at all. We shall return shortly."

Ginsei stared at her reproachfully, 'betrayed' by her leaving him alone with these overly powerful (and tempermental) psychos, but she ignored his gaze. She stalked purposefully from the room, dragging Doku with her.

"You wanted to talk to the pissy monk that bad?" the kappa asked with some disbelief once they were down the hallway and out of earshot. He rubbed gingerly at his arm. One would have thought she would rather stay with Kougaiji in case something else strange happened.

"Of course not," Yaone all but snapped. _"You_ are going to talk to Sanzo, as Kougaiji-sama ordered. _I'm_ going to talk to our 'guest' about this …possession or whatever it is that keeps happening. We're not going to be able to hide it for much longer."

Just what Doku didn't want to hear. He swallowed hard. "But…" he started weakly. "He got over it by himself once before…?"

"And can we depend on that now?" she demanded, whirling to face him. "This is an army we're facing, not the Sanzo-ikkou or a band of insubordinate youkai. It won't be a complete shock, at least, to Sanzo and the others, but Rasetsunyo needs to know. Shuyin …." She stopped, biting her lip.

That was a can of worms neither of them wanted to get into. "If Shuyin needs to know, Rasetsunyo will tell him," Doku finished for her with a confidence that almost didn't sound forced. "I mean. Who're we to … you know, this being a family squabble and all ...um. Right?"

"….right. Absolutely. Thank you." She hoped she didn't sound as relieved as she felt. Her personal and official vows to serve and support Kougaiji aside, she simply didn't feel comfortable taking sides in what was essentially a very personal family conflict. Sure, Kou seemed to have every reason to resent Shuyin's almost absurd re-introduction into his life, but Rasetsunyo had suffered as much (or more) from the demi-god's actions, and if _she_ had given up her grudge after her first night back with him, when he'd finally had a chance to explain…

Well, Rasetsunyo didn't strike Yaone as the type to forgive and forget for any reason other than a solid, legitimate one. Especially given her violent inclinations towards the ex-War God. If she of all people had decided that his desertion (or whatever had happened) didn't deserve retribution, Shuyin must have the mother of all Good Excuses already working in his favor.

Or not. She couldn't swear to it, but there was something deceptively painful in the way that Shuyin reacted to his family, and she had to wonder if he hadn't already paid (or was still paying) for the things he had done.

Most definitely not her business, she decided. The same way it was definitely not her business that Doku was fidgeting more the nearer they got to the hallways where the Sanzo-ikkou's rooms were, because he was much more worried about checking in on his brother (who, last anyone had heard, had barricaded himself inside his room with a supply of alcohol more appropriately suited to a regiment than a single person, and strange thumping noises like someone beating their head against the wall had been reported) than about checking in on a foul mouthed Sanzo priest.

All this shit ended up becoming her business anyway, it seemed.

"I'll just head down to the lower levels now, shall I?" she said dryly, freeing him of the necessity of making up an excuse for the detour he so obviously wanted to take. Men were so transparent.

He saluted, the ridiculous bastard, and her lips curved in a smile despite the absolute not-funny-in-any-way seriousness of the situation.

They went their separate ways, mutually disobeying orders. After all, what Kougaiji didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and they were running out of time.

-

Doku rapped sharply on Gojyo's locked door. As expected, he got no answer until he opened his mouth to announce himself.

'Fuck off' wasn't really a polite thing to say to one's older brother, Doku thought as he kicked the door down. Nor was throwing empty liquor bottles in reaction to doors being kicked down, as something heavy immediately shattered against the wall next to his head.

"I hope you plan on cleaning that up," he remarked mildly, surveying the dark room, which was a complete and total disaster area. "This isn't _your_ castle, remember."

Predictably, Gojyo was a mess too.

"Your ears fucking busted or something?" the redhead snarled from his little nest o' misery, which seemed to include himself in badly wrinkled clothes, a precariously balanced fortress of empty bottles, a wadded up sheet from the otherwise untouched bed, a couch and a table pulled next to it laden with a small mountain of cigarette butts. "I told you to -- "

"Yeah, I heard," Doku interrupted, still speaking in that mild and oh so reasonable voice. "I might even take that advice if we weren't, oh, you know, about to withstand a siege or fight a war or anything. Because then there wouldn't be time for pulling such stupid shit." He beamed. "And I just _know_ that you wouldn't be the type of person to do something like that at the worst possible time."

"Fuck off. 'S not our fucking war," Grojyo growled, irritated further by that sadistically painful cheeriness. "Not our fucking problem, any of this mess. So don't come in here and lecture me. I get enough of that goddamn crap from Hak—" He stopped. Scowled furiously. "Just get out, will you."

Doku had no intention of doing any such thing. Instead he flopped down uninvited on the other end of the couch, ignoring his brother's death glare. God was he sick of people with Issues glaring at him today. The sun wasn't even up.

"So. Hakkai." He pretended not to see Gojyo wince.

"Doesn't your Princeling need someone to hold his hand and open doors for him?" Gojyo demanded, cornered, his tone aiming for 'deliberately offensive and distracting' and only hitting 'slightly desperate.'

"Naw," Doku drawled, shifting around a bit to get comfortable. Lumpy damn couch. No wonder Gojyo looked like he hadn't slept in days. "He's with his mom. I'm sure he's doing fine."

"…………"

"So did you get dumped or what?"

If looks could kill, Doku would have been one crispy fried youkai.

"Ooh. Not dumped, then. Jilted?"

The swordsman smoothly ducked another hurled bottle.

"You keep that up and I'll take a belt to your backside," Doku promised cheerfully, grin freezing into place. "Don't think I won't."

Natural stubbornness/cranky bastardness warred with better judgment (and self preservation) across Gojyo's face, until finally common sense gave to the implicit menace and the newest missile was grudgingly lowered, but not set aside. "I'm not a goddamn kid anymore," the redhead muttered sullenly.

"Of course not. You're sulking behind locked doors and drinking yourself to death because that's the mature, adult thing to do. No, shut up, and don't give me that look or I swear I will beat you." Doku leveled his best authoritative glare. "We're in a real shitty situation here, Gojyo. I was hoping I wouldn't have to remind you about no brainer priorities."

Gojyo refused to meet his eyes, mouth still compressed to a hard, bitter line, and Doku groaned inwardly.

"Oh come on. So what, you're in love with him? This just getting to you all of a sudden? It's not exactly a news flash to the rest of the world—"

"I remember him, Doku."

Doku's mouth stopped running as he tried to process that one. "Uh…"

"I _remember_ him." And now Gojyo didn't sound cranky at all, just mortally tired and ..haunted. "All that shit Homura and his cronies ranted about, with us being gods and crap up in the Heavens ….and then Kanzeon and Goku and that asshole in white backing it all up …..I remember it. Some of it. I think." He scowled at nothing, frustration writing itself across his face. "Can't tell one way or the other with the dreams, what's real and what I'm just making up, but it's been getting worse when I'm awake. It's like … flashes of déjà vu here and there, when someone will say something, or do something a certain way, and gods, it fucking happens every single time I even look at _him_ … "

There was a sharp sound as the glass bottleneck under Gojyo's ever tightening grip actually cracked. Both brothers stared at it, until after a long moment Doku wordlessly reached out to pull it from Gojyo's unresisting hands, leaving the redhead to stare at them instead.

"It's not as bad as Goku or Sanzo," Gojyo admitted after another lengthy pause. "Isn't like we had anything directly messing with our heads. All Hakkai did was ask Gou…that guy to explain a few things, just so we'd know what to expect, but it …it was all so fucking _weird_ once he started talking. I couldn't stay and listen."

"But Hakkai did," Doku said, and got a morose nod in response.

"Hakkai didn't get so weirded out by it. I wonder …I wonder if that wasn't the idea." Bitterness crept into the halfbreed's voice. "They knew each other back then, him and that guy. I mean, so did I, according to what he said, but if he's been following Hakkai like this through all his lives …for hundreds of years…. " He stopped and looked up. Doku had a hand over his face.

"You," the older youkai groaned, eying him accusingly, "couldn't possibly have picked some kind of normal conflict in a relationship for big brother Doku to dispense sagely advice about, now could you? No, you gotta bring in big guns like reincarnation and gods and stalking/devotion past death and .."

"That's me, overachiever," Gojyo retorted, then resumed scowling. "Don't you dare think I _wanted_ it to be like this."

"No. No. You're a twisted little brat, but you're not that much of a masochist," Doku agreed, reigning in his exasperation. "So. I take it this has been more or less consuming your brain since Hakkai's pet cum divine stalker showed up and started telling tales."

A nod.

"And you haven't talked to Hakkai about it because it's fucking weird and because that guy knows a whole hell of a lot that you don't about it, about Hakkai and you and all your past lives because he somehow remembers them, and you feel like you can't possibly measure up to that and you hate feeling inferior."

Another nod.

"And you won't go talk to Hakkai about it even though that's the only thing that would make you feel better because you're in love with him, at least in –this- life, and you're desperately afraid of getting slapped down or finding out what dragon guy has to say about it."

Hesitation. Nod. It was pretty pathetic to deny reality at this point.

"So you thought you'd run off and ruin your liver and your lungs because you can't cope, hoping that he might eventually notice you were sulking like a selfish brat and take pity on you and come ask what's wrong without dragon guy, even though dragon guy's been pretty stuck to his side."

"…..that wasn't really how I'd thought about it."

"I should hope not." Doku shook his head. "Bad angle. Very bad angle to work. Our buddy in white is probably telling him right at this minute how childish it is to be so hung up over a thing like that with an army sitting on our doorstep. That's not going to cut you a very flattering figure in front of your objet d'amour."

"This isn't some village barwench I'm trying to impress and woo away from another guy!" Gojyo snapped, temper flaring. "Dammit Jien, I'm asking you to take this seriously."

"I'd like to kid, really I would. Just as soon as I figure out how it's not just a glorified version of 'I'm in love and can't deal with it,' because we really don't have time for that."

"That's _why."_

Doku quieted at the real desperation in his brother's voice.

Gojyo stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. "That's why," he repeated softer. "Because we really are running out of time."

"You think we're going to die here, don't you." It was a statement, not a question.

"Everybody runs out of luck sometime," Gojyo said bleakly. "First thing you taught me in poker."

"Yeah. Well. Remember the one about 'the only certainty in life is that nothing is certain?" Doku asked, strangely irked at being mocked by his own words of so many years ago.

"You got that off a fortune cookie."

"And you never listened to any good advice I tried to give anyway."

"You were always screwing around with subtext!"

"It was really obvious subtext!"

They glared at each other. Telling each other not to give up was a waste of effort. They already had their reasons why they wouldn't or couldn't, and their causes to fight for, and if they died along the way, that was just too bad.

Doku felt compelled to offer an escape anyway. He was the older brother. Older brothers were supposed to do things like that for their brainless younger siblings.

"…you don't have to do this, Gojyo," the bondsman said, knowing the futility in even saying so. "There's …you don't need to fight this fight. You could run…."

"Fuck you," Gojyo returned predictably.

"I'm serious. You don't owe me anything."

"I owe you everything, and that's not why I'm staying."

"Oh?"

Gojyo looked distant for a moment, and shadows moved behind his crimson eyes. "I'm here .."

_Pain. Red on black, red on white, green eyes and the horror in them that took his breath-- _

"Because he won't run. He never has."

"I wasn't asking about him."

"It's the same goddamn thing, isn't it?"

"No?"

"Idiot doesn't suit you, aniki," Gojyo said patiently. "Stop pretending you don't know what I mean. You wouldn't leave either, because Red Boy is still here."

The other youkai couldn't much argue with that. "So you're going to stay."

"I have to. That's what I'm here for."

Doku let his voice sharpen. Gojyo could be a horribly codependent brat, but he was also old enough to make his own decisions about what was good for him, and this didn't sound like a particularly healthy one. "That's an awful narrow focus you've got."

Gojyo shrugged. "It's traditional."

"What the hell does that mean?"

The halfbreed didn't answer at first. His hand moved of its own accord to the ache in the hollow of his shoulder, where a General named Kenren had once been pinned to the floor by a celestial crossbow bolt. Then seven more.

The eighth had been point blank through his forehead, while Tenpou screamed his name and had to hold back Konzen, _Konzen,_ from trying to come back for him….

"I remember dying for him."

Doku stared. "You…"

"Not like Sanzo. I said that already. It's just ….bits and pieces." Gojyo's hand tightened on his shoulder, squeezing the phantom injury. "I remember his expression. I remember …. "

A floorboard creaked in the darkest corner of the room, halting whatever Gojyo had been about to say, but when they both turned to look, there was nothing there.

"Gojyo," the swordsman asked carefully, a suspicion gnawing at him, "what exactly do you mean by 'traditional?' One time doesn't count as .. "

"Not one time," Gojyo said softly. "There were others."

"How…"

Flatly. "Too many."

Doku twitched despite himself. "I see."

"Over and over again," Gojyo continued in that same creepy soft voice, as though he were talking aloud to himself. "I can't get the images out of my head. If I'm only making them up to dream about them, they're pretty goddamn realistic. And I can't help but feeling that this is going to turn out the same."

"You don't know that." A pause, as Gojyo's bleak expression didn't change and no argument was raised. Christ, thought Doku, maybe he _did_ know that. "This is really why you're hiding in here, isn't it. Why you haven't spoken to Hakkai."

Bitterness seeped into the redhead's voice. "What can I tell him? What can I say? That his buddy in white pisses me off, but only because he'll be able to follow Hakkai after I'm gone and I'm worried that that means something? That I think I'm going to die before he will, so could we please get a few things straight before heading off into the next life? Don't worry about what will happen, one of us isn't going to survive anyway and it had better be you? That I can't – "

_"—can't do this again."_

Even Doku heard the echo that time, and the two half brothers both flinched.

"That's goddamn creepy, Gojyo."

"He thinks so too," said someone who wasn't Gojyo.

Gojyo clapped both hands over his mouth in absolute horror. Doku matched his petrified expression.

"What the – "

The door burst inward. "Kenren Taishou!"

"What?" Gojyo responded automatically, he and his brother both turning without thinking to look --

Goujun tackled the halfbreed off the couch and into the carefully balanced tower of glass.

"Er," said Doku, and then winced at the following crash and shriek of agony. "Er. What the fuck?"

"What did you do!" the Dragon King demanded, splitting his attention between sounding commanding and imperious and trying to maintain his grip on a yowling, bleeding, furious Gojyo.

Who had gone batshit. Not that a little righteous indignation (or furious retaliation) at being attacked out of nowhere wasn't warranted, but Gojyo didn't normally go from angst to bloodlust in a matter of seconds, even when he was drunk. It was as if it wasn't Gojyo at all who snarled, rage transforming his features, and lashed out with serious intent to maim.

Goujun must have been a hell of a lot stronger than he looked, because even a half blood youkai could punch holes through walls if they were angry enough, and Gojyo wasn't holding anything back.

"I didn't do anything!" Doku protested, shocked at the sudden ferocity in his younger brother. Funny, this was almost exactly how he had imagined Gojyo would end up dealing with his jealousy, by trying to beat the living hell out of the Dragon, but he hadn't foreseen himself getting blamed for it or that the fight would be so ….

….ow.

"You must have done something!" Goujun spat the words along with a mouthful of blood.

"I didn't!"

Goujun's answer was lost in a snarl as Gojyo's fist found and cracked bone. Doku rapidly vacated the couch and summoned his sword, not sure which psycho he was supposed to brain with its flat: the one who had appeared out of nowhere to accost his brother and accuse him or the one trying to prove that ripping out a person's spine and beating them with it wasn't just an expression.

In the end, neither. He waded in with all the surety of a tall, well built youkai who'd been in far too many melee fights before the age of sixteen. He caught one fist. The other he let bounce off his sword. The Dragon's expression didn't change, which made Doku wonder furiously about the consistency of the thing's skin. Perhaps those scales weren't merely for decoration.

An impromptu stalemate was introduced. Gojyo glared, breathing heavily and madness still in his eyes. Goujun glared, but icily and sanely.

Doku ignored the looks he was being given. "Now then," he said quite calmly. "What in the bleeding hell is going on?"

Gojyo started to growl, but Doku's grip tightened unmercifully on his captive hand, and something cracked unhealthily under the pressure. The halfbreed's expression went from outrage to pain.

"I wasn't asking you, brat."

Goujun took a step back. His pristine white outfit wasn't anymore. He didn't look so much enraged as annoyed. "This is not your affair, youkai."

"Family rights," Doku retorted with grim cheerfulness. "Out with it."

"Kenren would have such ill grace to be born as a youkai," the Dragon King muttered, and Doku was sorely tempted to point out that Hakkai, who Goujun seemed to get along so well with, was more youkai than Gojyo.

He decided to defend his species later, as more importantly, he noticed that Gojyo flinched at the name 'Kenren.'

Goujun did as well, and something flickered behind his unreadable, unearthly eyes. "Very well. Keeping secrets can hardly afford advantages now. You are surely aware of the circumstances of the Bosatsu's gift."

"Unfortunately."

"It was meant only for the boy."

Shit. "Sanzo has it."

"All four of them have it."

"What the hell, contagious memories?"

"Something very like. Anything can set it off. Anything can become a trigger."

The halfbreed spoke for the first time. His lip and knuckles were split and bleeding, and there were shards of glass sticking out in random places. "We were ..just talking. Don't get so bent out of shape." There was something odd about his voice.

"You were—and _still are_-- stirring waters best left untroubled," Goujun snapped. "The past is dead. Calling it back will bring you nothing but pain."

Something that wasn't quite Gojyo glared out of the redhead's eyes. "I am used to pain, _sir._"

"Gojyo," Doku breathed, shocked.

'Gojyo' looked at him without recognition. "Let go of me."

"Gojyo!"

"He can't hear you." Goujun didn't give anymore warning than that, just blurred into motion around the swordsman and launched himself at his trapped opponent. Doku saw too late the strange glow around white claws. They went down together, halfbreed and Dragon in a blur of scarlet and ivory. There was a sickening crack as skull met unforgiving floor.

The glow faded. Gojyo didn't get back up.

Goujun did, hauled straight up courtesy of an angry youkai's fist in the front of his shirt a few moments later.

"The matter is resolved," the Dragon said, unruffled. "Physical trauma is the simplest method of containment."

"I'll give you physical trauma – "

"The sealing charm on its own has proven ineffective, given the way that all three of them have been burning through memory seals." Goujun made no move to separate himself from Doku's grip, but his distaste and exasperation were clear. "Would you prefer I damage him more permanently?"

"I would _prefer_ you not damage him at all," Doku growled, still shaken by the apparent possession-by-dead-incarnate he had just witnessed in his brother, which alarmingly echoed Kou's current predicament. Ally or not, Goujun provided a convenient target for all the frustration and unease he was feeling right now. "If you've hurt him…"

Goujun snorted derisively. Doku looked down.

"Ow. Ow ow ow fuck." Gojyo sat up, rubbing at his head. His eyes weren't focusing properly. "Aniki?"

Doku dropped Goujun.

The Dragon King straightened his mussed uniform as best he could and ignored the disgustingly sincere familial idiot fest. This was ridiculous, expecting him to manage these circumstances by himself. Ridiculous, expecting him to deal not only with the Sanzo-ikkou and their gaggle of dubious allies, but the ghosts of Tenpou, Kenren and Konzen. The very difficult, rebellious ghosts of Tenpou, Kenren and Konzen.

And that wasn't even mentioning the other, less manageable ghosts, like the things that followed Konzen in this life and the things that followed the Red Prince and the things that followed Shuyin. And the Oathbreaker himself, the most unmanageable ghost of all. The bastard bloody well owed him for this.

At least the ghost of Kenren seemed to have been booted back to its proper place. The sealing charm he had cast was weak, unfortunately, he was not the mage his elder brothers were, but it would hold for the moment. The Gojyo creature was protesting his state of perfect health, no, he didn't feel weird at all, why do you ask, what happened in the last five minutes.

"You fell off the couch," Doku replied instantly. "Like an idiot. You hit your head on the way down."

Goujun regarded this unexpected source of help with some surprise. He hadn't been expecting any aid in the cover up, since Doku had no reason to know that flat out telling the redhead what was really going on would only weaken the memory seal (along with other, more dangerous seals) and trigger more incidents. The less he thought about his former lives, the better. Of course, explaining this would force him not to think about anything else, as it was probably quite unnerving to be told that at any moment a former personality of yours could simply take over.

How odd. Dokugakuji acted as though he'd had experience in keeping such secrets. He argued with his brother, who didn't believe that simply falling off the couch into a pile of empty glass bottles would leave him so bloody or senseless.

"Why's he here, then?" Gojyo demanded a little wildly, stabbing a finger at Goujun. His head hurt like hell and his back was up, he didn't remember the last ten minutes at all and there was something inexplicably Not Right about the things Doku was telling him. "And why's he all roughed up?"

"Some of us have been spending our time productively preparing the castle defenses, instead of sitting around," Goujun answered in a tone that had never failed to get a rise out of Kenren. It worked just as well on Gojyo, who completely forgot to ask just what kind of preparations, exactly, would leave someone looking as though they'd been in a barfight.

"You got something to say, go ahead and say it," the halfbreed hissed. "I know what you're after with Hakkai—"

"Oh please, Taishou."

"Don't you dare patronize me, you arrogant bastard!"

Goujun was visibly losing his patience. "We do not have time for this."

"Make some time, asshole," Gojyo purred dangerously. "If we all die tomorrow, I want the satisfaction of having this settled."

"There is nothing to settle. You are irrational."

Doku looked back and forth between the two and was irresistibly reminded of a scene upstairs. He hadn't (sort of) diffused that confrontation only to watch another one escalate.

"As much fun as it is to watch you two bicker," he declared irritably, "I actually came down here to retrieve anyone who wanted to talk about, oh, the war, since I assume that anyone who plans to fight it might want a say in the decisions. We can all put aside our differences and act civil to each other for a few hours in mixed company, now can't we?"

Gojyo started to protest.

"Hakkai will be there."

Gojyo shut up.

Perhaps ten minutes later, after Doku had bullied his sibling into getting cleaned up and making himself slightly more presentable, it was a resentful (Gojyo), stoic (Goujun) and cranky (Doku) trio that vacated the room. Goujun was last, his ruby gaze lingering over the shadows on the walls. His impassive expression soured.

"I'll be along shortly," he told the brothers. They eyed him suspiciously, until Gojyo shrugged in acceptance and started off. If the Dragon would rather run his own errands than tag along to fetch Hakkai, Gojyo wasn't going to argue about it.

Goujun waited until they were out of sight. Mentally cursed Shuyin again for being useless and always somewhere other than where he ought to be. Then turned around to plant himself firmly in the middle of the hallway the youkai had taken, challenge clear in his stance. The rasp of his sword clearing the sheath was very loud in the silence.

"Come," he challenged.

The watching darkness obliged.

-

In a lower part of the castle, next door to what had unofficially been dubbed 'the barracks' (since that was where all the soldiers were bunked), Yaone felt the beginnings of a headache as she turned a corner and found the 'cell' that had been converted for their single prisoner ….

……absolutely devoid of that prisoner.

She eyed the empty space. The empty space eyed her.

"This is ridiculous," she told it, and spun on her heel to backtrack. She quickly reached what had turned into the soldiers' common room. One stumbled out of it as she approached, muttering about card cheats and easy marks never working out.

"Xuan," she said very calmly, pretending not to notice his startled yelp and sudden scramble to attention at the sight of a superior. "Why is it that the cell next door is empty?"

"Oh! Um. Well."

"Was it an escape?"

"Er. No ma'am. Well, not exactly."

"Removed to another, more secure location then?"

"Yes'm. I mean, uh, sorta." He fidgeted, unable to meet her gaze. "It's just … er…"

She stepped around him while he was still stammering to eye the tableau inside the common room from the doorway.

The 'escaped prisoner' was seated at a table in the center of the room, gaze intent on the cards about to be played as a small ring of guard were on their own. From the pile of cheap coins and liquor, the prisoner was winning and had been for quite some time.

"I didn't know you played poker, Hwan-hakase," Yaone observed mildly. She leaned against the doorway and ignored the guilty/stricken/sheepish looks of the guards. Males of any species had all the same weaknesses.

Hwan smiled as she laid her cards down. "Oh, I'm just an amateur. Royal flush, boys. Cough up that cash, come on now."

There was general grumbling from the soldiers as they emptied their pockets. Yaone only raised an eyebrow when two or three looked to her for help. The normality of the scene gnawed at her briefly, aching where it collided with her thoughts of what was to come with the morning, but she shoved that aside. These were soldiers under the command of the crown. They had all made their vows regarding duty long ago, and Kougaiji would not keep them here against their will if they changed their minds.

Not that changing their minds would do them much good, in a castle surrounded by enemies.

"You realize that, as a prisoner of war, you're supposed to stay where we put you," the apothecary remarked once the fleecing of unwary soldiers had been completed.

"I apologize for the inconvenience, of course." Hwan removed her cracked glasses and brushed the hair from her face, mindful of the large bandage wrapped around her forehead. They'd found her in the wreckage of the castle during the last expedition made there, before the army had appeared, a scrap of white fabric marking her underneath the crushing rubble. Miraculously she had survived the collapse, and they pulled her out bloody and unconscious but breathing, and only suffering from a few fractured bones, rather than pulverized ones.

There had been little indecision over her fate. Hwan might have been one of Gyokumen's pet scientists, but she had been as disturbed and aggravated by Nii as any of the Kou-tachi, and in their minds anyone who didn't like Nii had something going for them. Also, within her own limited capacity (she was not the head scientist and had never gotten over her resentment about it), she had been kind to Lirin while Nii was busy cackling over tubes and wires and things that a head scientist had to busy himself with. Kougaiji was willing to forgive the human woman a great deal just for that, though he'd been a little puzzled at Doku and Yaone's fierce arguments for her preservation.

Simple logic was behind it, really. There was little advantage in taking revenge on Hwan for everything she'd been involved in. The past was dead, they had a hell of a lot more to worry about for the future, and Hwan happened to be one of the few who knew anything about the barcoding process and the manifestations of the Other. Kou had no clue, but they desperately needed someone who could give them any information on the Other, either from personal knowledge or from deciphering Nii's scrawled, barely legible notes on the subject. Hwan understood the arrangement quite well. Be useful, and she would be protected.

Yaone fixed a smile on her face. Convenience or inconvenience, they needed this woman. Kougaiji's well-being depended on it, and both Yaone and Doku had pledged that they would do anything in their power to keep him safe, which meant ensuring the safety of those who could help him where they themselves could not. If necessary, Yaone would defend Hwan at spearpoint.

"Xuan," she called, and he hurried over, "I need to speak to the good doctor alone for a moment. Would you be so kind as to …"

"Of course, miss Yaone." He saluted smartly, apparently recovered from his earlier attack of bumbling, and efficiently cleared the room of unwanted spectators in record time. When the last of the now penniless guards had filed out, he bowed to the two women and exited himself.

"They'll have all their ears to the door, you realize," Hwan said. Yaone dropped into a vacated chair, glad to be off her feet.

"I'm sure they will," the apothecary replied wearily, and then raised her voice slightly. "Which is why I released a powder in the air before I came in, that anyone who breathes it in will suffer from short term memory loss and other convenient side effects."

There was a sudden muffled noise outside the door, as though a half dozen or so people had abruptly vacated the immediate area.

Hwan looked at Yaone with interest. "Did you really?"

"Of course not." She sighed. "If I had anything to destroy memory, I'd be using it on myself so I could get some sleep."

The scientist immediately picked up on what wasn't being said. "It's happened again, hasn't it. A manifestation."

A nod. "During an argument with Rasetsunyo-sama. He …. _it_ … stepped in to end it. It took the Empress' side and somehow ..I don't know, convinced Kougaiji-sama to drop the argument. He acted like it hadn't occurred when he returned to himself."

"It took someone _else's_ side?" Hwan asked sharply. "It didn't act in Kougaiji's defense?"

"Only if one considers diverting Rasetsunyo-sama's anger acting in his defense."

Hwan was up and rummaging through messily packaged sheaves of paper on a nearby table, some of the contents of her room apparently having been brought over. "Nii's notes mentioned something about this. About what might happen if it developed itself as a separate entity capable of independent thought."

Yaone felt a chill run down her spine. "But that's not possible. It's not …it's not a separate entity. It's Kougaiji-sama. Brainwashed, or whatever, but it's all Kougaiji-sama. Nii even told us that. How could it be otherwise?"

"Split personalities can do the same thing," Hwan explained absently as she leafed through papers covered in spidery, cramped handwriting. "However, I'm not sure that's the case here …"

"What do you mean?"

"It's a little difficult to explain. I'm not sure I understand it myself." The brown haired scientist held up the fruits of her search, a battered handbound notebook, and carefully laid it on the table in front of Yaone. "I found this tucked into a binder in the middle of some useless lab reports. I do believe that man was trying to keep it inconspicuous."

"Or else he was just messy."

"Or that."

"What is it?"

"Miss Yaone," Hwan inquired softly, instead of answering. "Have you ever heard of the Crimson King?"

-

_Earlier_

"The Crimson King?" Rasetsunyo gave her lover a blank look, combing through her long hair as she sat on the edge of the mussed bed. "That old legend?"

Shuyin was facing away from her, the line of his back a wordless declaration of tension. "Didn't your father ever teach you not to dismiss old legends?"

"No, that was my mother. She was the one who insisted that our family had some kind of divine spirit that could be summoned for protection."

"I could have done with you disbelieving that one, actually."

"You loved it."

"_You_ loved it. You were fifteen and in love with my horse."

"He cut a much more magnificent figure than you did."

Shuyin rolled over on his back, gold eyes picking out her slender figure even in the dark. There were marks on her skin. He'd been gentle, or had tried to be, until she ordered him in no uncertain terms to stop treating her like she was made of glass. They hadn't seen each other for the better part of several hundred years, she had said practically, while her fingers tangled in his hair and her hips rolled agonizingly above him, so why not make the reunion memorable.

There had been pain involved after that. But it was a good kind of pain.

He had almost forgotten how much he loved her, during his long sleep. During the long centuries of his duties. He had tried his best for all of them, to be guardian, guide, and savior for the children their souls had been born into, but she was the one who had finally driven him to madness.

_"Give me a child, Shuyin. Give me an heir to the throne, to become Emperor when Gyumaoh is dead."_

Madness. To think he could change the way the world worked. To think he could impose some kind of morality on the corrupt system, to give a child, _his_ child, the right position and the right opportunity to bring about a lasting peace. He would pave the way with sword and fire, making it his sin, his murders, his judgment on both divine and mortal souls, and his son would be able to step in after to a place where there was still some semblance of justice alive. A long time ago, he'd thought it possible to force that kind of evolution.

Yet nothing ever changed in the way Heaven and Earth were run because, at some level, there were always those who didn't want anything to change.

Kanzeon's mocking smile made sense now. His father's despair made sense now, though Shuyin had surely become what he'd died to see put in place—an incorruptible soul in Heaven. A deus ex machina strong enough to challenge the system, and win. Someone strong enough to save a few innocents.

And yet here he was, with all his accomplishments set to end in blood and misery and frustration. His own son at risk. All these children at risk, their futures at risk, their sacrifices about to be discarded and overlooked. And yet here he was, brought back full circle to how he'd been his first day in Heaven, chained to the wall and bleeding to death, unable to do more than howl his frustration and cry for his losses. Their pet and pawn, their mad dog to mock and provoke.

Some savior.

"I need you to do something for me, Rasetsunyo," he said quietly into the silence. "And you must promise me that you will not question or argue."

"That sounds ominous." She stopped fussing with her hair and looked at him. "Is this the part where I finally get an explanation of where you've been all these years?"

"If you want to hear an unpleasant story."

"I'm sure I can handle it."

He told her. The stillness in her told him more than any horrified noises or gaps in breathing. She did not weep, over the part the pertained to Kougaiji, or what Shuyin had done, perhaps mistakenly, to protect him. An Empress never weeps unless it serves some purpose for her.

An Empress especially does not weep for someone already long dead.

"You will have to be very careful," he finished somewhat lamely. "I don't know how much I will be able to help out, given ….er, circumstances."

"You aren't telling me everything. Are you." Her voice and face were composed, remote, but the look in her eyes cut him to pieces. "Again."

Stronger wills than Shuyin's had been dissolved by that particular tactic, but the first rule of the job for those who would be guards for Tenjiku's Empress was to know when not to obey her commands, either spoken or unspoken. "It would serve no purpose, dearest," he told her gently. "That, and doing so might endanger you further. There's no reason to risk it."

"I hate it when you play martyr, Ko Shuyin. It makes the rest of us mere mortals feel horribly inadequate."

"It's not all that much fun for me either."

She kissed him rather suddenly. "I will do as you ask. But."

"But?"

"But." She put her hand over his mouth. "I'll think of the condition later. So you can worry about it in the meantime."

"Thanks," he grumbled into her palm, until her other hand moved and he abruptly lost track of what either of them had been saying.

"Don't mention it," she whispered.

Neither of them did, for the rest of the hours they had left together alone.


End file.
